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…
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“It’s not personal. It’s just business.” Is healthcare a business? Should it be a business? These are serious existential questions that need to be answered as palliative care works to…
Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. This stanza from Mary Oliver’s poem “Sometimes” has made its way into every essay I have written about…
Over the weekend one of our hospice patients had been brought to the Emergency Department when his temperature was 101. His work-up had revealed WBC’s in his urine and he…
This is the earnest question I heard from a 5-year old girl to her mother as they left the church after the funeral. Brave of this mother to bring her…
It’s been quite a while since an end-of-life issue has caused such a buzz in the medical world or in the public conversation. Everybody from the New York Times to…
Working for a hospice pharmacy benefit management (PBM) company in North Carolina specializing in geriatrics, Ellen Fulp, PharmD, sees a lot of patients who are dealing with life-limiting illnesses. These…
Palliative care services are often lacking in rural settings. While I work at the University of Colorado on the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, I live in rural Colorado and…
The Master of Science in Palliative Care prepares physicians, nurses, physician assistants, and pharmacists to be Palliative Care Community Specialists. PC community specialists will receive education and skill development enabling…