Palliative Care Blog

National Consensus Project Issues 4th Edition Quality Palliative Care Guidelines

Updated Standards Emphasize Expanding Palliative Care to All Settings

By Larry Beresford

The National Consensus Project for Quality Palliative Care recently released the 4^th Edition of its “Clinical Practice Guidelines for Quality Palliative Care.” Starting in 2002 as a collaboration of four leading professional organizations involved in advancing palliative and hospice care, NCP has grown to 16 constituent organizations and 80 endorsing organizations.

This growth can be seen in the guidelines’ emphases on new roles for physician assistants and pharmacists in palliative care, the emergence of community-based palliative care, and continued opportunities for incorporating palliative care principles into pediatrics, according to Betty Ferrell, PhD, director of nursing research at the City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, Calif. She is lead author of an article on the guidelines just published in the Journal of Palliative Medicine.

[Read more…]

3 Wishes: Transforming Death in the ICU

Project that Began With a 2017 Seed Grant is Now Flourishing at UCLA Medical Center

Editor’s Note: Thanh Neville, MD, MSHS is a board-certified pulmonary and critical care physician and researcher working in the intensive care unit at UCLA Medical Center and is a recipient of a 2017 Seed Grant from the Gary and Mary West Foundation, awarded at last year’s CSU Institute for Palliative Care National Symposium for Academic Education and Research.

By Thanh H. Neville, MD, MSHS

“I actually sleep with that blanket every night, because that’s the last thing that Adam touched.” Sandy’s words sent chills down my spine and tears to my eyes. It was a few months after her husband’s death, and I had asked her if she remembered the blanket that I had given to her as part of our 3 Wishes Program at UCLA Medical Center. Through the program, clinicians elicit and implement final wishes for patients dying in our intensive care unit (ICU). Adam was only 36 and was a brilliant software entrepreneur who loved spending time in the Santa Monica outdoors with his wife. Sandy knew he would not have wanted to spend his final moments within the four walls of his hospital room.

[Read more…]

Honoring the Past and Present in Palliative Care

Nominations Sought for Institute’s Annual Doris A. Howell Award, Celebrating Those Who Have Greatly Enhanced Palliative Care in San Diego Region

By Lorene Morris

It’s remarkable to think about the early visionaries and clinicians who were instrumental in forging a path to whole-person, patient- centered care. Consider the incredible impact of Cicely Saunders, the English nurse, social worker and physician whose act of compassion for David Tasma, a young terminally ill cancer patient, led to the birth of the hospice and palliative care movement, which would spread throughout the world.

[Read more…]

Palliative Care Social Worker Keeps Her Focus on the Person, Not the Diagnosis

2017 Donald and Darlene Marcos Shiley Scholarship Winner Shares What She Learned in Institute’s Post-MSW Course

By Melanie Marshall

As a palliative care social worker, Elizabeth Robinson, MSW, knows that effective whole-person care hinges on a critical step: getting to know the patient.

Hearing their stories and learning what matters to them is central to her work. It’s also one reason why—after 25 years in social work, in roles that ranged from mental health services for children, to discharge planning in obstetrics, to working in a Heart Transplant and LVAD program—Robinson has finally found her calling.

[Read more…]