This is an article about the new c-word… COVID. Let me reassure you that if you find “COVID talk” difficult and is something you’d rather ignore, you are not on your own. Take home messages: Hospice staff are still struggling with the emotional implications of working through the emergency period and foreground ways of getting […]
Latest articles
The Fabian Strategy of the NHS
Dr Matthew Doré (exploring Rome) Palliative Care consultant in Northern Ireland and Hon Secretary of the APM Instead of meeting Hannibal’s forces head-on in a pitched battle, Quintus Fabius Maximus the Roman general opted for a strategy of delay. Fabius won the battle using a deliberate strategy of procrastinating, avoiding and promising to meet and […]
The Cinderella Phenomenon
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 Every Friday, between 5 pm and 6 pm large numbers of patients will be declared dying. This phenomenon- known as the the ‘Cinderella Effect’, is common in hospitals and demonstrates how […]
On losing a friend and renouncing Schopenhauer
By Prof Mark Taubert, Consultant in Palliative Medicine, Cardiff, UK “Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.” ― Arthur Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena This year, I lost a very dear friend called Yiannis. Only in his late forties, he had a rare form of bone marrow cancer. He was a successful […]
The ‘Grab and Go’ Guide
In this Forum article, the authors describe the ‘Small Steps, Big Vision Grab and Go Guide’ with its focus on children and young adults Authors: Holly Smith, Acting Matron – Children & Young Adults Service St Oswald’s Hospice Gosforth Newcastle upon Tyne, NE3 1EE UK, Diane Nicholson, Sister, Children and Young Adults St Oswald’s Hospice […]
3 years in
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 Why every hospital deserves a ward for Palliative Care In December 2022 I wrote about our palliative care ward 1– it was just one year old at the time. When I […]
‘I’m an Oncologist from India – here’s what I gleaned from a palliative care placement in the UK’
Professor Punita Lal is an oncologist from India. Here, she describes a palliative care placement in the United Kingdom. She spent a month at Velindre Cancer Centre in Wales, where she experienced inpatient, outpatient, community and hospice palliative/supportive care. Providing comprehensive acute palliative cancer care – many models exist! Donning different hats is […]
International Research Society of the Sapporo Conference Newsletter – Summer 2024
BMJ SPC Forum, in partnership with the International Research Society of the Sapporo Conference, Japan, co-publishes its seasonal Newsletter in the BMJ SPC Forum The following is from the Summer issue of the International Research Society of the Sapporo Conference for Palliative and Supportive Care in Cancer Newsletter that was published in July 2024 for […]
Flowers in the Dark
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 Soft masticating, The only sound Of a mouse pondering -unknowable thoughts. The absence of an owl, Swooping on silent wings To complete the picture of idyll. But the owl had met […]
The meaning of Regret.
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 Regret is anti- onomatopoeic It doesn’t babble like a brook, Or sigh, like the breeze But I understand how regret feels Nights spent longing Laughing at private mistakes Conversations never held […]