Predictive powers are a sought after quality in palliative care – so how did Nena get it so right in 1983? by Prof. Mark Taubert, Consultant in Palliative Medicine, Cardiff, UK For many Germans like me, who grew up in the Eighties, there’s been a sense of déjà vu. The international furore around suspicious […]
Category: Comment
The Sound of covid-19: Binaural Recordings of a Palliative Care Ward Round in a Cancer Hospital.
Authors: Prof. Mark Taubert, Consultant in Palliative Medicine, Velindre University NHS Trust & Cardiff University School of Medicine, Cardiff, UK Mr Glenn Davidson, Artstation, Cardiff, UK Dr. Mike Fedeski, Artstation, Cardiff, UK Dr. Jelle van Gurp, Coordinator Clinical Ethics Radboud University Medical Centre; Assistant professor Ethics of Healthcare, Nijmegen, Netherlands The pandemic has created an […]
Slipping Through the NET
A blog by patient Sally Jenkins, Cardiff, UK Palliative versus end of life care, we all know they’re not the same, but even so, they’re often used synonymously. Nowhere is the need to distinguish between them more pressing than in the management of neuroendocrine cancers, known as NeuroEndocrine Tumours, or ‘NETs’. Arising from unusual neuroendocrine […]
New Charter to support better life-long conversations about ‘What Matters Most’
News Experts from leading charities and health bodies in Wales and across the UK have launched a new charter to support better conversations between people and their loved ones on the topic of living at the end of our lives. It is hoped that this will encourage people to have open discussions, whatever stage they […]
Compassionate Country Wales
In this blog, Mark Taubert talks to Julian Abel about Compassionate Communities and what a Compassionate Country Wales may look like. MT: Bore da, Julian, croeso y Gymru. Great to chat to you. Let’s get straight to the bare bones. Vaughan Gething, Cabinet Secretary for Health […]
Proposal for the development of community end of Life Care: A guest post by Julian Abel
Background Over the last 45 years the hospice movement has set the standard for caring for people who are approaching the end of life. The levels of services have been developing steadily and the quality of care has been of the highest standard. An unintentional consequence of the development of end of life services […]
“One can die, but cannot fall ill”– A Survey on how costs may affect choice of therapy in Singapore
An article by Song Chiek Quah of the National Cancer Centre in Singapore Introduction Continued advances in medical care in the recent years have given some hope to patients afflicted with diseases that, in the past, have poor prognoses. However it would seem that hope comes at a price, at least within the Singaporean context. This […]
Des Spence asks, are we in denial?
Des Spence, in his BMJ ‘From the Frontline’ piece, asks the question, “Assisted dying: are doctors in denial?” It turns out that, rather than being for or against legalisation of physician assisted suicide, Des suggests a third, pragmatic position. He suggests that doctors routinely withhold treatment and shorten patients’ lives with the use of large […]
Integrating quantitative and qualitative methods – and getting it published
Bill Noble, BMJ Supportive & Palliative Care, Editor-in-Chief Describing a study as ‘mixed method’ never felt very respectable or clever. For years we understood that finding the answer to questions about the value of parts of the health service required different kinds of data. The difficulty was knowing how best to put our findings together. […]