By Dr Joseph Hawkins, Consultant in Palliative Medicine, Clinical lead for End of Life Care, Ashford and St Peter’s NHS Foundation Trust. Twitter: @JoeHawk75825077 Last night I dreamed of a consultation. It wasn’t a real patient that I was recalling but rather an amalgamation of patient stories from the day that had infiltrated my subconscious. […]
Latest articles
Be complex, be palliative
By Dr Joseph Hawkins, Consultant in Palliative Medicine, Clinical lead for End of Life Care, Ashford and St Peter’s NHS Foundation Trust. Twitter: @JoeHawk75825077 Reporting for The Palliative Times, Our guest reporter Dr Oje Snawkih writes: The new advert for palliative medicine trainees has been a huge success. This follows a dramatic fall in training […]
The Victorian assisted suicide experience and its implications
Author: Hon. Robert Clark, former Attorney-General and MP, Victoria, Australia. Introduction The experience of Victoria, Australia, has been cited in the United Kingdom debate as a shining example of how an assisted suicide regime can work well. I demonstrate here that this is not so, and set out some implications of the Victorian experience. The […]
Could QR-Based Information Sharing Platforms Be Acceptable to Specialist Nurses for Palliative Care Patients?
Authors: Dr. Caitlin Cahill – Junior Clinical Fellow in Palliative Care, Velindre University NHS Trust, United Kingdom Dr. Stephanie Sivell – Research Fellow, Marie Curie Research Centre, Division of Population Medicine, Cardiff University, UK Prof. Nikki Pease – Professor of Palliative Medicine, Velindre University NHS Trust and Cardiff University, UK Introduction: The Care Quality Commission […]
The Well
By Dr Joseph Hawkins, Consultant in Palliative Medicine, Clinical lead for End of Life Care, Ashford and St Peter’s NHS Foundation Trust. Twitter: @JoeHawk75825077 You were stillness A Well of depthless inactivity Amongst the motion Frenetic concentration Blue dress staring at lit screens Beside you Not involving you Your stillness a stark wall Of non-involvement […]
The rock and the crime.
By Dr Joseph Hawkins, Consultant in Palliative Medicine, Clinical lead for End of Life Care, Ashford and St Peter’s NHS Foundation Trust. Twitter: @JoeHawk75825077 Thank you for coming- I Have a crime to report! Only yesterday I was sitting here as I do since I first rolled down The days merge with the seasons, But […]
Could assisted dying for ‘terminal anorexia’ be coming to the NHS?
Author: Chelsea Roff Chelsea is Executive Director of Eat Breathe Thrive, a non-profit organisation that works to help people recover from eating disorders. Connect on X and LinkedIn. For an audio version of this post, please click here Introduction: When I first learned about a physician in Colorado helping patients with eating disorders die by […]
Discrimination-driven deaths – Analysing Ontario Coroner Reports on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide
Author: Dr. Ramona Coelho, Family Physician; Senior Fellow of Domestic and Health Policy at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute; Member of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) Death Review Committee; Ontario, Canada. New – Listen to this post on Spotify, read by the author: Introduction: As a family physician in Ontario, Canada, my practice largely serves marginalised groups: […]
My Tower. Your heart.
By Dr Joseph Hawkins, Consultant in Palliative Medicine, Clinical lead for End of Life Care, Ashford and St Peter’s NHS Foundation Trust. Twitter: @JoeHawk75825077 The Wood of simple Words was first, the construction began Strong and supple built upon Simplicity- Mother and Father It felt strong and formed so much That first timber warped Too […]
You should read the new VitalTalk book, and here’s why.
There has perhaps never been greater awareness of the importance of serious illness communication, nor evidence to support its critical role in achieving effective clinical care. Despite this, trainees and practicing clinicians continue to report feeling underprepared for difficult conversations. Reassuringly, a new guidebook is poised to make talking with seriously ill patients more approachable […]