One of the greatest challenges facing the NHS, in this its 70th anniversary year, is the care of ageing and increasingly frail older people. End of life care is not something that we as doctors seem to want to talk about, which means that when patients are admitted as an emergency to hospital the default… 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
One of Dame Cicely Saunders’ most enduring legacies is the importance of being present, of witnessing, at the end of life. Academic witnessing at the margins of life and death can require balancing an intense intimacy with simultaneously gaining enough distance to ‘see’ significant or representative broader concepts. What does this mean for us as… Continue reading
Suffering and pain present both practical and theoretical problems. This might be surprising. Having long faced the problem of pain, we might have expected it, by now, to be solved. Pain treatment, however, remains woefully inadequate. Chronic pain is not only often incurable and difficult to manage, it is proliferating. Pain treatment and management are… Continue reading
As the trends of population growth and aging further the need to expand end of life care globally, it is important to understand that conceptions of appropriate end of life care vary cross-culturally. This global dimension is at the forefront of The End of Life Studies Group’s research. On the 15th of May, the Group… Continue reading
As an anthropologist, I am interested in assisted dying as a cultural practice and in the discourse surrounding it. What does it tell us about our culture and about its values? In line with historian Shai Lavi, I too contend that the most interesting ethical question pertaining to assisted dying is not “what should we do” but… Continue reading
A few weeks ago I attended a Syrian Suppers fundraising event. It seemed a long way from my current interests in the life and legacy of Cicely Saunders, but just before leaving I was asked by an acquaintance about when my latest book was coming out. It was just one example among so many of… Continue reading
Cicely Saunders once stated that ‘suffering is only intolerable when nobody cares’. Yet suffering is a broad concept with many aspects. Members from the Glasgow End of Life Studies Group recently attended a two-day philosophy conference entitled ‘Suffering and Autonomy at the End of Life’. Speakers came from a range of academic disciplines – including… Continue reading
