“A Palette of Care”: Haslinger Pediatric Palliative Care Center (Guest Post by Dr. Sarah Friebert)
July 27, 2012 | 
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At the Haslinger Family Pediatric Palliative Care Center, each child and family can pick and choose the colors they need or want to create the most beautiful painting possible of life and hope. This image was inspired by two simultaneous events: a letter received from one of our bereaved mothers, thanking us for the care we provided for her son, and a watercolor painting done by a young artist in our program, who was dying of a rare spinal cord tumor but who brought forth onto a canvas the image of a palette of colors as she depicted what palliative care had meant to her and her family during her journey. Read the rest of this entry »
How it all began: Founding the first US free-standing pediatric palliative care center (Guest post by Dr. Barbara Beach)
It began with Jim. He was a big-hearted, courageous young man dying of cancer, and I was a young pediatric oncologist at the beginning of my career, not 10 years his senior. Jim simply wanted to die at home, in the company of his mother, away from the hospital where he had spent so many weeks and months battling his disease. Yet as hard as I tried, I wasn’t able to make his final wish possible Read the rest of this entry »
American Board of Internal Medicine releases new MOC module on Hospice and Palliative Medicine
We have achieved a huge milestone for palliative care. Earn 10 MOC credits by completing of the new ABIM Hospice and Palliative Medicine Self Evaluation Module! This module consists of 25 multiple choice questions, rationale for the answer choices for each question and a set of references. Read the rest of this entry »
Packing for the trail
This 15 year old is ready, but just not yet. He's been packing, packing for the trail as his mom described yesterday. He's also asked her, "will you meet me on the other side". She said "yes". She also said she didn't know what she was saying yes to but she is sure it was the right answer. It seems to me that this young man is still here because the love is so palpable, and even though the trail is welcoming he's still enjoying the love, the pure and utter love amidst some discomfort and a changing body. Read the rest of this entry »
A Case Study from Nigeria: The added value of spiritual care and support in a terminally ill-patient and family
A.M is a 14 year old secondary school boy who presented to our facility in March 2011 with a history of progressive scrotal mass extending to the rectum. An impression of locally advanced testicular cancer was made and he was being worked up for tissue biopsy and histology Read the rest of this entry »
Of Pilgrims and Palliative Care
I am away on vacation in Spain while writing this and I love to walk. I was recently on a long walk with friends and family during which I had lots of time to think. The walk just happened to be part of the large network of paths that form the pilgrimage routes of Santiago de Compostela.... Read the rest of this entry »
Casualties of a different kind – care givers experience PTSD
“I can’t breath, I can’t drive, please help me”. These are the words of distress from the mother of 4 year old who died 5 weeks prior from “natural killer cell leukemia”.
She called me from the side of the road and described to me recurring images she was experiencing of the last moments of his life Read the rest of this entry »
Champions of Hope
“Are you afraid you will destroy our hope? We create our hope. You are not a limiting factor in our sustaining hope.”
The “clinical “trick” that this mother and families desire clinicians to practice is being present with compassion while disclosing prognosis and all treatment options including palliative care options. Read the rest of this entry »
Moments in Time – Saying Yes
I like to pretend that I’m a photographer. It’s much easier to tell people I’m a photographer than to tell them what I really do. I’ve learned to absorb the looks of despair and the hand on the heart response when I choose to share that I’m a pediatric hospice social worker. Read the rest of this entry »
Unconditional offerings – Antidote to burnout?
I have just come back from a week at Upaya in Santa Fe taking a "course" called Being with Dying. Why the quotation marks around the word "course"? The quotation marks reflect my linguistic block - I simply do not have one word that can describe the experience and therefore I need to resort to words such as "course-retreat-contemplative practice immersion". The week long experience was a gathering of..... Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Communication, Patient Centered Care, Pediatrics, Psycho-social | 
Tags: Being with suffering | 
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