GOOD Magazine recently published a short video on the "Business of Death." The video focuses on the funeral industry in particular, not hospice or palliative care. Most of GOOD's videos and articles focuses on the impact that each of our individual choices has on the world and others when combined all together. So obviously there is a eco-friendly (or rather unfriendly) theme in the video.
The production quality of the video and animation is top notch and manages to inject some humor into a potentially dreary subject, while still educating. (Don't miss the use of Anubis the Egyptian god of the dead in the video.)
Whether or not you agree on the content, or the lack of somberness for a somber subject, you have to appreciate the potential power this 3 minute video has. It would be nice to see some palliative care topics with animation and video like this. Any Pallimed readers with some animation skills interested in putting together some instructional but fun hospice and palliative medicine videos? Email me ctsinclair @t gmail d0t com.
>>The Hospice Foundation of America has a new blog up since August 2007. The blog seems to focus on media articles and caregiver stories, and opportunities to watch HFA teleconferences. I am wondering when AAHPM and NHPCO are going to start blogs. Growthhouse blogs seem to be dormant., which is unfortunate. It would be nice to see some more palliative care related blogs.>>A blogging medical student learns a good lesson about dying patients.
>>The National Catholic Register has a 3 part series on dying that has more tones of a conspiracy theory that hospice and palliative care is out to end people's lives. There is some misrepresentation in this article, so I am not going to bother to respond point by point, since I am tired from the Washington Post opinion piece post. In some places the author seems to say make sure you have the 'right kind' of palliative care or hospice, but does not state how to make sure it is the right one. I think most hospices and palliative care teams do a good job of meeting patients and families where they are at.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
>> You were already probably aware that November is National Hospice Month, but just in case you were not aware of these other Palliative Care related awareness issues. Did you also know it is:
- National Family Caregivers Month
- National Prematurity Awareness Month
- National Lung Cancer Awareness Month
- National Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month
- National Prostate Cancer Awareness Month
- National Alzheimer's Awareness Month
Just wanted to make sure you were aware before you made more people aware of hospice that they may be wary from being made aware.
3 comments:
I only read the first one, got bored, and stopped. The article uses all the typical rhetorical techniques, generalizes from a single example, and confuses rather than clarifies...conflation of pas, euthanasia, and withholding treatments in dying patients ('passive euthanasia'); irresponsible generalization of the pope's statements on tube feeding in brain injured people (which basically says it should be continued if necessary for life) with withholding artificial nutrition/hydration in the imminently dying (which the pope did not say was mandatory); i could go on.
1) What really bothers me is the erasure of patients in discussions like this - how do most people want to go when it's their time (hint: it's not with tube feeds and IVF running)? Like all ideological discussions what matters are the ideas and not the human face of sick people and their caregivers (professional or not) trying to make their death as humane is possible.
2) The story about the hospice not giving that guy's dad any food/fluid etc.: these stories are always brought up in articles like this and I'm sure at times they are accurate - we've all seen really poor and inappropriate care given (in all medical settings including home/inpatient hospices). Planting these stories in the middle of such ideological trash makes it impossible, however, to respond.
3) Articles/blogs reiterating these points are a dime a dozen - I think the best response is continuing clear promotion and representation of our work in HPM - keeping the focus on the dying themselves. I think the NHPCO 'it's about how you live' campaign is a good example of this.
Oh yeah and lovely autumn-themed banner Christian. Thanks.
Thanks for commenting on the NCR articles Drew. And thanks for noticing the new header. I will leave it up for a week or so, then revert back to the original. I don't have any big plans for Thanksgiving, but I am working on a winter one right now.
Did you notice the new Pal-pourri logo? It has a little cinnamon and some pine cones. Mmmmmmm... fresh.
And for those of you reading by Feedblitz or Feedburner, you don't get the embedded video.
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