Specialty Now Known as Hospice, Palliative Care and Puppies

(We hope you enjoyed our April Fool's jokes this year. Look for more of our past April Fool's posts here. - Ed.)

by Abe R Feaulx, Pallimed Special Reporter

Due to years of trying to explain what palliative care is, how it is similar yet different from hospice and that the skill set of doctors, nurses, chaplains, social workers and other professionals extends far beyond the last few weeks of life, the organizing body Association of Palliative Realists Interested in Looking For Unified Language declared the new name for the field "Hospice, Palliative Care and Puppies."


Spokesperson and CEO for life of the Association of Palliative Realists, Frank Drebin said at an April 1st press conference, "One of the hardest things to do is get a palliative care team access to the patients that need them the most.  Members of our think tank discussed all the things that are universally loved and accepted without question to see if we could co-opt these values."  Mr. Drebin cited the hard work of Dr. Barry Rumack in coming up with the key ingredient.

"It was during a particularly difficult airplane flight, that I began to think of a few of my favorite things," shared Dr. Rumack.  "Frankly not being much of a fan of whiskers on kittens, I thought puppies would be a good fit.  Everyone loves a puppy.  Even the ugly ones like...what are they called, Pugs?  Who came up with that name? It even sounds ugly. We won't have any ugly or sad looking puppies in any of our training programs, you don't have to worry about that.  Anyway, where was I...we knew it has been so difficult to convince doctors and patients that a service focused on people would be beneficial.  Our past efforts to come up with slogans all seemed to fizzle despite the wonderful potential.  Some of my favorites were:

• "What time is it?  Who cares? The palliative care team is here and we give you all the time you need to feel heard." (that one was hard to get on posters and business cards)
  
• "Palliative care! Gesundheit!"
  
• "Do you need a pal? Call your palliative nurse!"
• "Palliative Care: Have it your way!" (Apparently, Burger King got this one trademarked one day before we did)
  
• "Hospice: so cool, it's got ice in the name!"
• "Palliators to the rescue!" (I remember we got Stan Lee to draw some comic books for this but it didn't take off.)
  
• "Palliative Medicine: So hip and fresh, they have blogs!"

Frank Drebin thinks this new name for the field will help avoid any misunderstandings.  "People like puppies, people like being heard, people like having their suffering relieved, now we can do all three."

Happy April Fools 2011 from Pallimed