What puts the ‘public’ in public health palliative care? A flurry of men and women with name badges and conference bags over their shoulders could be seen in the corridor of the Bristol Marriot Hotel at the start of the 4th International Public Health and Palliative Care Conference. I found myself an empty seat in… Continue reading
Copenhagen was home to Hans Christian Anderson and Soren Kierkegaard, so at this conference I was hoping for a stimulating mix of narrative and reflection. That was certainly present in some of the sessions. There were good stories to be told and some deep thinking in evidence about the challenges that palliative care faces. The… 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
So, another year and another trip to India. During the last three years I have travelled to various cities of India to attend the yearly conferences of the Indian Society for the Study of Pain (ISSP) and the Indian Association of Palliative Care (IAPC) in order to collect data for my social science doctorate, looking… Continue reading
I have just attended for the first time the annual meeting of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, held jointly with the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association. The venue was Philadelphia – the city of brotherly love – and over 3,000 people attended, mainly from the USA, but with small numbers from some… Continue reading
How could we not believe miracles don’t happen when we actually witnessed one! That miracle to us was the successful accomplishment of the STUDENTSPALCON2015 international conference on the topic “youth in palliative care” organized mutually by the Institute of Palliative Medicine, Calicut and the Students in Palliative Care. To organize a conference was initially… Continue reading
In previous posts I have told how exciting it was when the ‘pioneers’ of hospice/palliative care realised that, much as they thought they were introducing something new to patient care, they were in fact pleading for recognition and acceptance of the most basic, undeniable, ages-old features of compassionate care. Cynics described that as ‘reinventing the… Continue reading
Thanks to David Clark for allowing us to introduce readers of his blog to our recent publication entitled Death, Dying, and Bereavement: Contemporary Perspectives, Institutions, and Practices. Written by luminaries who have shaped the field, this capstone book distills the collective wisdom of foremost scholars and practitioners who together have nearly a millennium of experience… Continue reading
