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
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
This week in Kerala, southern India, the first ever student and young people’s palliative care conference is taking place. It is called STUDENTSPALCON 2015. The impetus has come from the ever-resourceful Institute of Palliative Medicine in Kozhikode, and the associated Neighbourhood Networks in Palliative Care. The conference website states: “Critical engagement with the idea of… Continue reading
The ATOME project comes to a close after five years of research and advocacy. The results strengthen our knowledge of barriers and challenges to access to opioid medication and more importantly how to overcome them. The project outputs include: the revised WHO policy guidelines on ensuring balance to controlled medicines and detailed reports on barriers… Continue reading
At the end of January 2014 I learned that I had been successful in winning a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator Award in the Medical Humanities. The new project starts on 1st March 2015 and is focussed on improving our understanding of interventions at the end life. It will take a global perspective and will… Continue reading
It is not uncommon to refer to the United States as the most ‘death denying’ culture in the world. As one wag observed, ‘Americans don’t die, they just under achieve’. Certainly America spends unprecedented amounts on health care in the last year of life – apparently in search of life extension, but often it seems… Continue reading
I have known and worked with Dr Carlos Centeno since we first met at a conference of the EAPC in Geneva in 1999. Over the years, and as our friendship has grown, we have mainly collaborated on studies associated with the EAPC European Atlas of Palliative Care. Recently, Carlos has established the ATLANTES research programme… Continue reading
I like small scale but clever gadgets. Personal favorites are a 1950s wall hung hand coffee grinder and a steam driven stove top expresso pot. They are human scale technologies. While I gain much from the daily exertion they require, the longer I use them, the more I like to think I am paying my… Continue reading
