When in February 2014, I heard the news that my application for a Wellcome Trust Investigator Award had been successful, I could scarcely have imagined what would follow over the next six years. The Trust is perhaps unique among funders in the incredible extent to which it gives grantees the scope and encouragement to think… Continue reading
I spent a productive week at Dumfries this May working with the Glasgow End of Life Studies Group on our project funded by the Scottish Funding Council on “Assessing the Quality and Outcomes in a Community Form of Palliative Care Delivery in Kerala, India”. In this post, I reflect on the genesis of this project,… Continue reading
Recently, I had the privilege of going to India as part of our project “Creating a framework for assessing community based palliative care in Kerala” There, I was able to attend the Indian Association of Palliative Care’s annual conference and spend a week working alongside Dr. Devi Vijay from the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta,… Continue reading
Palliative and end of life care is still a small field of activity, but it has quickly developed a global network of people who want to work together, often in productive ways. It was my pleasure in the last few weeks of 2018 to welcome to the University of Glasgow, Dumfries Campus some of the… Continue reading
Kerala’s community model for palliative care has sustained attention in global palliative care discourse, as an alternative, resource-effective form of organizing. What distinguishes the community model from professional-centric models such as hospices and hospitals, is that the community volunteers serve as the anchor in coordinating ‘total-care’ – i.e., medical, social, financial support and rehabilitation –… Continue reading
Approaching the podium at a recent global health colloquium, I spotted something which I hadn’t seen before: a tiny set of traffic lights designed to cue the speakers and help with their timing. As I stepped up it wasn’t the sight of this innovative time-keeping device but an awareness of the delegates, the global experts on palliative care… Continue reading
As a medical anthropologist on the Wellcome Trust funded project Global Interventions at the End of Life, I am interested in community participation in palliative care. In our study we are investigating the transfer and translation of a range of end of life interventions, across cultures and settings. One of these is the Neighbourhood Networks in Palliative Care… Continue reading
Our University of Glasgow study team, supported by a Wellcome Trust Investigator Award, is examining how responses to end of life issues are developing around the world, and with what consequences. Death, dying and bereavement are topics that mainly sit on the margins of the humanities and social sciences. Whilst end of life care attracts… Continue reading
