{"id":1750,"date":"2022-08-01T09:00:17","date_gmt":"2022-08-01T09:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/spcare\/?p=1750"},"modified":"2022-07-11T15:15:26","modified_gmt":"2022-07-11T15:15:26","slug":"welcome-to-the-department-of-rebrands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/spcare\/2022\/08\/01\/welcome-to-the-department-of-rebrands\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome to the department of rebrands."},"content":{"rendered":"

By Dr Joseph Hawkins, Consultant in Palliative Medicine, Ashford and St Peter\u2019s Clinical End of Life Lead, UK. Twitter: @JoeHawk75825077<\/em><\/i><\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWe pride ourselves on rebranding here- sewage workers? Perhaps you\u2019d prefer \u2018essential underground sanitary removal operators\u2019? Bus drivers? So mundane, so pass\u00e9, surely you deserve the nomenclature of \u2018skilled mass micro-migration managers\u2019. Et voil\u00e0,\u00a0the role of your dreams is only a new term away. With a flick of the lexicon of possibility,\u00a0a new world of meaning can be revealed, shifting to reveal new summits and possibilities.<\/p>\n

So, now that the pitch has been heard-\u00a0what can we do for you?<\/p>\n

Re-brand \u2018palliative care\u2019?\u00a0Change the name, because some users don\u2019t like it.\u00a0Too real, too deathy?<\/p>\n

Ok, it is a tricky one. Have you thought about comfort care? Or supportive care? You have?And it still comes down to\u00a0palliative<\/i>\u00a0being a sticky subject, eventually? I see. If only we could stop being palliative!\u00a0No, I see that was the wrong joke for the audience. My apologies.<\/p>\n

How about \u2018symptomatic care\u2019, or\u00a0\u2018restorative\u2019, \u2018reformatory\u2019, \u2018therapeutic\u2019..pardon? Oh, I see, yes I\u2019ll stop reading from the thesaurus now. So you\u2019re still not convinced that they\u2019ll come to mean the same thing but with the added buzz of conspiracy about why the name needed changing.<\/p>\n

The challenge, you see, seems to be that this isn\u2019t bus driving or sewage maintenance, the issue here is LIFE, you see no-one wants to talk about it ending. Especially members of the caring professions, you all seem so fixated on cure that admissions of fallibility seem tied with feelings of guilt. It\u2019s terribly challenging.<\/p>\n

Perhaps we could be more radical and rebrand\u00a0Dying<\/i>–\u00a0\u2018Life Spectrum Disorder\u2019? Acquired sub-life? How about: Disease Entropic Acquired Telomeric Halting (or DEATH for short)?\u2026. You know, I really thought I\u2019d have you with that one-you medics love an acronym, don\u2019t you?<\/p>\n

Did I tell you about the time we re-branded urinary catheters- \u2018golden tubes\u2019:\u00a0they do the work so you don\u2019t have to<\/i>. Then there was the time we were tasked with colonoscopies-\u2018windows to the deeper problems\u2019, yes, good times. Not as tricky as this one, though.<\/p>\n

No? Well, I can see that this will take some time, ah-ha- I have it: \u2018minuscule chronological managers\u2019. Don\u2019t like managers? I see..<\/p>\n

May I suggest a change of specialty?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

PS:<\/i>\u00a0<\/i>Note by the author: this is satire- please don\u2019t direct any angry swearwords at me. Because I WILL find an alternative term.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Further reading by this author:<\/strong>
\nNo Longer in Vogue<\/a>
\nA project to identify the patients who we know we are missing.<\/a>
\nDiagnosing Dying\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Dr Joseph Hawkins, Consultant in Palliative Medicine, Ashford and St Peter\u2019s Clinical End of Life Lead, UK. Twitter: @JoeHawk75825077 \u201cWe pride ourselves on rebranding here- sewage workers? Perhaps you\u2019d prefer \u2018essential underground sanitary removal operators\u2019? Bus drivers? So mundane, so pass\u00e9, surely you deserve the nomenclature of \u2018skilled mass micro-migration managers\u2019. Et voil\u00e0,\u00a0the role […]<\/p>\n

Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":460,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/spcare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/spcare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/spcare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/spcare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/460"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/spcare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/spcare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1750\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/spcare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/spcare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/spcare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}