Death and Dying April 2009 Archive

Unless you've been living in a cave for the past week, you've heard the disconcerting stories of the swine flu. This nasty bug has caused a panic all over ... Read More

The Hospice Foundation of America (HFA) is hosting it's 16th annual National Living With Grief® Bereavement Teleconference, "Diversity and End-of-Life Care" THIS WEDNESDAY, April 29, 2009 from 1:30pm-4pm ET. ... Read More

As part of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization's (NHPCO) annual leadership conference, the organization released new Standards of Practice for Pediatric Palliative Care and Hospice. Currently, only 10-20% ... Read More

In today's The New York Times, Paula Span writes in The New Old Age about our avoidance of Advance Directives. We have a wonderful document that allows us to ... Read More

Researchers at Children's Hospital Boston have developed a slow-release anesthetic drug-delivery system that could have a large impact on chronic pain management. The idea is that a single injection ... Read More

I live near a fantastic inpatient VA hospice which serves thousands of U.S. veterans at the end-of-their lives. Our hospice is always careful to screen our new patients for ... Read More

April 16th is National Health Care Decision Day. I encourage you to celebrate by making some important health care decisions of your own. If you need a little ... Read More

I participated in a conference call with FDA today about their recent ban on non-FDA approved opioids, which included highly concentrated oral morphine solution commonly used in palliative care and ... Read More

For some strange reason, the FDA is aggressively banning the production and distribution of non-FDA approved opioid pain medications. Many people have been wondering, "Why now?". I've been ... Read More

California recently adopted the Physician's Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment (POLST) paradigm for patients to make their health care wishes known. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to ... Read More

The third edition of Palliative Care Grand Rounds is available now. This months host is Jessica Knapp at her blog, The Good Death. None of my blogs are ... Read More

In a move that will have a huge impact on hospices in the U.S., the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) is sending letters of warning to prescribers and distributors of non-FDA ... Read More