Author: Professor Katherine E Sleeman, King’s College London, UK The UK is moving closer to legalisation of assisted dying. One of the arguments made in favour of legalisation is the limit of palliative care to resolve all suffering. Many of the speeches made in support of the Leadbeater bill (which would legalise assisted dying […]
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Sapporo Winter Newsletter
Author: Dr. Kunihiko Ishitani President of The International Research Society of the Sapporo Conference for Palliative and Supportive Care in Cancer President, Higashi Sapporo Hospital, Japan As the saying goes, “time flies like an arrow,” and before we know it the 5th Sapporo Conference for Palliative and Supportive Care in Cancer (SCPSC) will be upon […]
Exploring the unknown
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 At a recent family event a relative explained in long suffering terms how no-one knew why she had a persistent, low level tachycardia at times. The issue appears benign and this […]
Unconscious competence
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. […]
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 […]