{"id":2163,"date":"2024-11-15T09:00:54","date_gmt":"2024-11-15T09:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/spcare\/?p=2163"},"modified":"2024-11-05T10:51:20","modified_gmt":"2024-11-05T10:51:20","slug":"the-palliative-times-special-education-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/spcare\/2024\/11\/15\/the-palliative-times-special-education-issue\/","title":{"rendered":"The Palliative Times. Special education issue"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Dr Joseph Hawkins, Consultant in Palliative Medicine, Clinical lead for End of Life Care, Ashford and St Peter\u2019s NHS Foundation Trust. Twitter: @JoeHawk75825077<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/p>\n

Welcome back readers. In this special issue of the Palliative Times we seek to bring snippets of wisdom from our patients, clinicians and others. To start us off we have a short interview with Professor Softly-Softly.<\/p>\n

\u2018Professor, how would you describe the state of palliative care education in the UK in 2024?\u2019
\n\u2018Well I\u2019m glad you asked me that question, it\u2019s something I get asked a lot. Before I answer I wonder what you think?\u2019 Said the Prof.
\n\u2018Well..I guess many of your peers are saying that it\u2019s not good, Professor- would you agree?\u2019
\n\u2018I think you\u2019re right, James, the state of palliative care education is abysmal. Many hospitals don\u2019t include any concepts around end of life care in mandatory training and although I rarely leave the hospice I understand that people still refer to the word Palliate as a verb.\u2019
\nOur reporter Simon tells us that the interview was then cut short as Mrs Jones\u2019 dear little puppy turned out to be an 18 stone Rottweiler and was trying to eat the hospice cat.<\/p>\n

\u2018My hospital is a good place to die\u2019.<\/p>\n

In our next interview we braved the exotic scents and endless corridors of our local District General Hospital.
\nHere we met Dr Oje Snawkih. Oje, as he prefers to be called had prepared the following statement for us:
\nI\u2019m very proud of my hospital, my hospital is a good place to die. However, my team and I sometimes feel less like the palliative care team and more like the unpalatable care team. Everyone wants to be the hero in life and patients dying feels very unheroic. So when it\u2019s all stopped working we often get referred to; not to support the patient, but to break the bad news, and to take the patient\u2019s away.
\nDying is a little like a hospital fetish in the eyes of many, better kept to those who have a preference for it and otherwise not talked about.
\nWe are working on this through education and are hopeful that after 40 years we are just a few months from success.<\/p>\n

An historical perspective from Ruby (99), a retired hospital doctor.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m glad you\u2019ve asked me to talk about this because I recall the day in 1982 when palliative medicine was formally recognised as a medical specialty by the royal colleague of physicians. Since then things have come on in leaps and bounds. I\u2019ve seen many people close to me die; my parents, my siblings, my husband, my next two husbands. One of my daughters, a son in-law and enough pets to fill a small cemetery. Yet although society may not see death as commonly as when I was young the medical profession has grown up a bit and whilst it\u2019s it\u2019s still in the adolescence of its evolution, \u2018Medicine\u2019, is not seen as black and white. More can be done and people are learning that this doesn\u2019t always mean it should be done simply because it is possible to do it.
\nI won\u2019t live to see Medicine get to be a young adult, it still has a few years of temper tantrums when it doesn\u2019t get the new MRI it wanted for Christmas. But I\u2019m seeing its personality coming through and that gives me hope. If I may paraphrase Jay Z: I have 99 problems but Medicine is one that I am less concerned about than global warming and the perpetual fight against fascism.<\/p>\n

Editors thoughts.<\/p>\n

Well, this has been an enlightening issue for us all here at the Palliative Times. We have heard the voices of despair from those in the thick of it and also the temperance of time and perspective. It seems that palliative care education has far to go but perhaps has already walked some distance in its relatively short life. We look forward to continuing to report on this exciting topic in the future.<\/p>\n

Also by this Author:<\/strong>
\nThe nature of joy<\/a>
\nThe Cinderella phenomenon<\/a>
\n3 years in<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Dr Joseph Hawkins, Consultant in Palliative Medicine, Clinical lead for End of Life Care, Ashford and St Peter\u2019s NHS Foundation Trust. Twitter: @JoeHawk75825077 Welcome back readers. In this special issue of the Palliative Times we seek to bring snippets of wisdom from our patients, clinicians and others. To start us off we have a […]<\/p>\n

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