Center to Advance Palliative Care

Greetings to all of my collegues and friends out there doing the work of palliative care. Any palliative care is better than no palliative care, but we should strive for the best, not just good enough. I am a nurse and a nurse practitioner. I am an advocate for the profession and the role of nursing at all levels. I say that to say this, nurses became nurses to be nurses. Time has shown us that without a physician champion in your palliative care service, the service will stay small or die out when you get too tired to keep doing it. You need allies in good places. As much as we all want people to do the right thing, fact is hospitals are physician driven, and docs listen to other docs. Nurses will always be on the front line with their social work collegues doing the "dirty work" but without the presence of a strong physician champion opening doors, its a much tougher road.
Additionally, as in all things, once you give it away for free, its a hard sell to get someone to pay for it. Nurses, we have good hearts, our history has us on the battle front caring for people others have given up on. We have a rich wonderful heritage, and it grew up along side our physician collegues. The palliative care community needs us all.
I honor the work you are doing Sophia, thank you for the sacrifices you make for your patients every day. Margaret.