Palliative Care Blog

More Pediatric Palliative Care Education Needed, Expert Says

In the normal cycle of life, children outlive their parents by decades. When the situation is reversed, and the child is diagnosed with a life-limiting illness or devastating genetic abnormality, deep suffering can affect the entire family, as well as members of the care team.

Pediatric palliative care can help relieve the symptoms and stress of a child’s illness by helping to address the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of the child and family, with the goal of improving quality of life.

Because advances in healthcare are helping seriously ill children live years longer than once expected, the need for pediatric palliative care providers is growing. Providing truly effective pediatric palliative care, however, requires strong teams educated in caring for and communicating with young patients and their families, experts say.

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Holiday Gatherings are a Great Time for Advance Care Planning

Experts say ‘Tis the Season to Talk with Family about Healthcare Wishes  

When parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and other family members gather around the holiday dinner table, conversations are typically sprinkled with small talk about the weather, football scores, and the latest gift-giving trends.

Rarely, though, do families address perhaps the most important subject for any adult – especially older adults with a serious health condition such as cancer, lung disease, or heart failure. What matters most to them in the time they have left on earth? How do they feel about invasive life-sustaining measures such as life support that might only prolong the inevitable? What kind of medical care would they want if they are no longer able to speak for themselves?

Discussing these healthcare decisions and the values that guide them is called advance care planning – and the best time to do it is now, experts say.

While such talk may seem at odds with the festive spirit of the season, the holidays are actually the perfect time for end-of-life discussions, said Sharon Hamill, PhD, a professor of Psychology at Cal State University San Marcos who has done significant work in the area of advance care planning. Hamill is the former and founding director of the CSU Shiley Institute for Palliative Care at Cal State San Marcos, a campus partner of the CSU Shiley Institute for Palliative Care.

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Event Highlights Need to Grow Palliative Care Workforce

Healthcare leaders, policy strategists, and other experts gathered recently in Washington D.C. for an all-day workshop on how to address a predicted shortage of healthcare professionals prepared to meet the growing needs of an aging population, many of whom will be living with chronic disease.

The event, “Building the Workforce We Need to Care for People with Serious Illness,” was hosted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM), and drew clinicians, researchers, and advocates in the field of palliative care and beyond.

The roughly 20 speakers included Jennifer Moore Ballentine, MA, Executive Director of the CSU Shiley Institute for Palliative Care; Arif Kamal, MD, MBA, MHS, Professor of Medicine, Duke University; Deborah Trautman, PhD, RN, FAAN, President and CEO, American Association of Colleges of Nursing; and Denise Hess, MDiv, BCC-PCHAC, representing the Association of Professional Chaplains.

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