Articles: palliative-care.
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J Public Health Med · Dec 1997
Factors associated with utilization of specialist palliative care services: a population based study.
Palliative care services have been criticized for providing specialist care for a privileged few but there is no routinely available information to prove or refute these criticisms. Our survey aimed to identify and describe the patients using specialist palliative care services in a Health District and identify whether any factors distinguished them from other eligible patients who did not use these services. ⋯ Effectiveness studies in the field of palliative care are essential but difficult. We suggest that there is an important place for local studies of needs and utilization for guiding sensitive contracting.
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Medical decisions regarding end-of-life care have undergone significant changes in recent decades, driven by changes in both medicine and society. Catholic tradition in medical ethics offers clear guidance in many issues, and a moral framework accessible to those who do not share the same faith as well as to members of its faith community. ⋯ Yet, it is not in the teaching on individual issues that a Catholic moral tradition offers the most help and comfort, but in its account of what it means to lead a life in Christ, and to prepare for a Christian death. As in the problem of pain and suffering, it is the spiritual support more than the ethical guidance that helps both patients and physicians bear the unbearable and fathom the unfathomable.
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Canada faces a significant and growing burden of terminal illness. There are major unresolved economic, ethical and social issues related to care at the end of life. Despite the international reputation for Canadian efforts in palliative care, the medical profession in Canada has largely failed to recognize the importance of the field, as evidenced by the lack of commitment on the part of most medical faculties at Canadian universities to developing academic strength in palliative medicine, the lack of content in the undergraduate curriculum and of postgraduate programs in palliative medicine, and the lack of support for research into end-of-life care. The authors propose a conjoint initiative by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and the College of Family Physicians of Canada to develop specialized training programs in palliative medicine as a critical step in addressing this crisis.
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This report is based on an occasional paper prepared for the National Council for Hospice and Specialist Palliative Care Services. The paper acknowledges that although quality is already central to the palliative care approach, this is not usually in the context of multidisciplinary and collaborative audit. The document offers guidance on how to translate the principles of quality into an action programme for all professionals involved in palliative and hospice care.