SPPC Blog
The Silent Treatment
Drama, like palliative care, is concerned with exploring crises and change. So often characters in plays, like patients, find themselves facing shock, uncertainty and conflict. I have spent much time over the years thinking about how to meet these challenges and help patients and their families.
An international exercise in compassion
Some people may think that I, and other ‘pioneers’ of hospice / palliative care, were alive with the dinosaurs.
An old man's anecdote
Forgive me if you have heard my story before. Old men tend
to be anecdotal.
I'm sorry to moan but...
I have been visiting terminally ill friends in Edinburgh though I
suspect I might have had the same experience elsewhere. Two were in major NHS
units, and one in a well-known hospice. Let me say at once that I have no doubt
they have been thoroughly investigated, have been on the best therapeutic
regimens, have had skilled care from nurses, physiotherapists, occupational
therapists and social workers. What distressed me where the so-called “smaller
things”. My experiences were those of a
visitor (family or friend) and never once did I tell anyone that I was a
retired doctor.
Lessons from Africa
Professor Scott Murray, GP and St Columba’s Chair of Primary Palliative Care at the University of Edinburgh, shares some of his experiences from a recent trip to East Africa:
Reflections of a Hospice Chaplain
Reverend Stuart Coates recently retired as Chaplain of Strathcarron Hospice. One of the 'founding fathers' of the SPPC, he has been an active and valued member of SPPC groups and the wider palliative care community throughout his career. Though retired from the Hospice, he continues his role as Chair of the Forth Valley Spiritual Care Committee and his interest in the Cross Party Group in the Scottish Parliament on Palliative Care.
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