What is a MediCaring Community? In this episode Dr Joanne Lynn and Professor David Clark discuss the ideas and practicalities behind the concept. Joanne is a geriatrician, hospice physician, health services researcher, quality improvement advisor, policy advocate and is Director of the Altarum Center for Elder Care and Advanced Illness. Her book, MediCaring Communities: Getting… Continue reading
In this episode, Professor Bridget Johnston and Dr Carlos Centeno discuss Dignity Therapy from their perspectives as academics and palliative care clinicians. Dignity Therapy is a therapeutic approach which aims to help patients with terminal illnesses to think and to talk about things that are most meaningful to them, and to document their legacy. The… Continue reading
Around the world there is a growing interest in the ways in which dying people are cared for, but there is little or no agreement on what ‘good death’ really means. With such fundamentals left unresolved, should we address the global challenge of end of life care around the world in a unified way, or… Continue reading
What were your milestones, highlights, top tips and even low points in 2016? Our bloggers start the conversation with their notable moments from the year: David Clark It has been a terrific time for the project. In March I was able to lay out the scope of our ambitions at the Palliative Care Congress in Glasgow. During… Continue reading
As Christmas approached in December 1965, Cicely Saunders could look back on a year of considerable achievement. After seven years, she had decided to leave St Joseph’s Hospice in Hackney, where she had learned in-depth the craft of caring for dying patients. She was now devoting the whole of her time to the planning of… Continue reading
I have had close links with Hospice UK for many years, serving first as a Trustee and now as a Vice-President. So it was a real honour to be invited to give the opening plenary at the charity’s annual conference in Liverpool, in a splendid riverside setting overlooking the Mersey. The timing was good too. … Continue reading
All over the USA people are crying out that we have lost the ability to communicate with our fellow man, that words no longer even have the same meaning to each of us in our polarised society. Brexit, Trump … slowly the eyes of the world are turning to the next western elections: France, then Germany. When… Continue reading
Individuals’ aesthetic preferences for a good death are as significant as physical suffering in decisions to opt for an assisted suicide. This is the main finding from my anthropological study, now available as an open access article Assisted Suicide as a Remedy for Suffering? The End-of-Life Preferences of British “Suicide Tourists” in the journal Medical Anthropology.… Continue reading
