My mom had a catastrophic stroke in December of 2017 – almost five years to the day after a more mild one – that ended her life at the age…
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What would you do with an 89-year-old woman who walks with a walker, and you find in “a fib” two years after her last ECG? I might not thin her blood. And just a…
Facilitating spiritual and cultural rituals as desired by patients and families is an important component of holistic palliative care. The National Consensus Project for Quality Palliative Care makes this clear…
Reflective writing is an important part of my spiritual practice and my wellbeing as a healthcare professional. I’m grateful for recent collaborations with The Human Touch, a literary journal for…
I had visited Mr. Williams several times over the last few months. In his early 60’s he had been diagnosed with lung cancer after years of tobacco use combined with…
No One wants to die. This is usually followed by some “inspiring” pabulum; such as the Steve Job quote from his 2003 Stanford graduation address: “Death is very likely the single…
Understanding what you mean by “provide comfort care” can be very challenging. We use the term as shorthand within medicine, but it is confusing to the “real” world of our…
It is quite a coincidence that I am teaching an ethics module this week on Truth-telling and Confidentiality for the Certificate and Master’s program for Clinical Specialists in Palliative Care. …
I was part of a team of palliative care providers that developed and later worked in the Safe Harbor Palliative Care Unit at the VA Medical Center in Birmingham Alabama. …