The Business of Death; Pal-pourri

The Business of Death

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.