Sandy Fraser, The Open University I’m 55 years old and have just acquired a long-term health condition. It might be a quite a few years before I acquire another health condition, still longer before I die. Life expectancy for men and women continues to increase but so has the proportion of life spent living with… Continue reading
Since arriving in Dumfries, I’ve been daily graced by a generous view of the local cemetery just across from a park suffocating with screaming, hyperactive children. At first sight, I was struck by how unassumingly picturesque it was—the cemetery sprawls across the side of a hill, rows of stone teeth unnervingly still against swaying trees,… Continue reading
A United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Dying and Seriously Ill could improve global standards for all people at the end of life, proposes Sharon Young of Kingston University. End of life care provision varies widely throughout the world. Standards of care available to the dying and seriously ill depend upon the… Continue reading
The University of Glasgow awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Science to Derek Doyle, one of the pioneers of modern palliative care, in July 2014. Since then Dr Doyle has been a popular and regular contributor to our blog. Here he blogs about the origins of palliative medicine as a specialty. Some readers may… Continue reading
José Miguel Carrasco (Sociologist and PhD in Public Health), is a Spanish researcher from ATLANTES research programme (University of Navarra, Spain). He visited us recently at the University of Glasgow’s campus in Dumfries, Scotland with the aim of sharing experiences and knowledge, and working together on issues which relate to both our research groups. In… Continue reading
Dr Thomas J Lynch of Johns Hopkins University asks whether at the ‘end’ there is any ‘point’? I left the North-West of England for the Eastern Seaboard of the United States of America almost 18 months ago to take a position at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Since my arrival in the USA, I have… Continue reading
Ronald Macintyre of Opening Educational Practices in Scotland (OEPS) gives an introduction to their open learning project and explains why our teams are working together to develop learning resources for people interested in end of life issues. Who are OEPS? The easiest way to talk about who we are and what we do is to… Continue reading
The 1970s and 1980s saw palliative care services starting all over Britain – hospices and NHS ‘continuing care units’, day units, home care services, hospital consultation services, ‘hospice at home’. Those were undeniably exciting times but they brought many problems and challenges. Where were the trained staff? There were no plans or policies in place… Continue reading
