Ethics, Palliative Care, & Chaplaincy - Hospice & Palliative Care

The modern world faces religious, spiritual and existential quandaries, as new technologies redefine the beginnings and ends of life. Excruciating choices arise about when to turn off the machines - whether and when we should "play God." The COVID-19 pandemic made these dilemmas ever more acute. Increasingly, however, public discourse on religion and spirituality is polarized, with evangelicals on one side and vehement atheists on the other.

Psychiatrist and bioethicist Robert Klitzman explores how patients and families struggle to make sense of serious disease and threats of death and other medical crises, seeking hope, purpose and larger connections beyond themselves. Physicians and other clinical staff are frequently uncomfortable with these issues, and chaplains have been filling the void, developing valuable approaches and insights. Most Americans will die in hospitals or nursing homes, and face existential and spiritual quandaries. Many of their prior religious and spiritual beliefs will fall short, and chaplains will often be the ones to assist, partly by reframing narratives and understandings of illness and spirituality. Yet people often know little, if anything, about these professionals. Klitzman presents stories about the spiritual lives of patients and explores the role of chaplains - who they are, what they do and the challenges they face.

Drawing on in-depth interviews and the author's personal experiences, Doctor, Will You Pray for Me? provides vital information that can assist in medical care decisions. Robert Klitzman argues that a better understanding of the relationship between these realms will enable more holistic and humane treatment of patients.

Death is inevitable, and yet the vast majority of the developed world seems to want to ignore this fact and avoid the sad inevitability. However, death is an inevitability, and trying to avoid talking about it is a mistake.

Estimated Time of Departure takes readers on a journey of one man and his family having these discussions and how powerfully loving and revealing they were. In this funny, moving, poignant memoir, William Donaldson tells the story of how he talked with his parents over an extended period about their end-of-life thoughts and philosophy. He shares the sad, funny, maddening, sweet, and rewarding sides of this journey and makes a compelling and impassioned plea to readers to not miss this opportunity. They were not without sadness and challenges, but by virtue of talking and exploring the topic, the family came closer together and the inevitable passing became, while still sad, a cathartic, deeply rewarding event. Estimated Time of Departure was written to give readers the courage to have these discussions and shows that hope, love, and reverence can be seen by having them.

The first resource of its kind, this authoritative handbook holistically addresses the multidimensional aspects of perinatal and neonatal palliative care. Written by an interprofessional team of renowned specialists, it is both a text and an evidence-based reference for all members of the palliative care team. This book helps individual team members forge interdisciplinary approaches to care, assess current programs, improve the quality of care, and tailor new models of care.

Encompassing the perspectives of numerous multidisciplinary healthcare providers, the book underscores the unique aspects of perinatal and neonatal palliative care, with a focus on improving quality of life, as well as comfort at the end of life. It describes healthcare for neonates and pregnant mothers, care and support of the family, planning and decision-making, and effective support for grief and bereavement, addressing all palliative and neonatal care settings.

Other chapters focus on the prenatal period after diagnosis of the expected baby's life-threatening condition. These include such topics as care of the mother, delivering devastating news, and advance care planning. Each chapter contains photos, figures, and/or tables and case studies with clinical implications and critical thinking questions. Also included is an extensive listing of relevant palliative care organizations. Paintings and poetry provide an artistic backdrop to the authors' inspiring words.

The Hospice & Palliative Care Handbook, Fourth Edition, offers concise, focused coverage of all aspects of hospice and palliative care for clinicians, managers, and other team members who provide important care while meeting difficult multilevel regulations. Filled with key topics such as professional standards and guidelines, bereavement services considerations, outcomes, goals, and quality control.

The first comprehensive clinical guide for practicing palliative care and hospice clinicians, this evidence-based reference is designed to promote best practices in the delivery of safe, compassionate patient care. With a dual focus on evaluation and intervention, the book covers all aspects of providing palliative and hospice care for vulnerable and diverse populations. It provides an overview of common disease manifestations, typical trajectories of illness, symptom management, and recommendations for nursing care.

The aging population has only grown since the first edition of this comprehensive and seminal publication released nearly 20 years ago. Based on the need to humanize rather than medicalize the illness experience for patients, Palliative Care Nursing: Quality Care to the End of Life, Fifth Edition, delves into palliative care beyond the specific diseases affecting the patient. ICU nursing and ICU style help is impersonal and outdated. Instead, this textbook focuses on the wholesome caregiving to benefit the patient and their support network.

Palliative patients struggle with debilitating and painful conditions, and because their condition is chronic, they grapple with the fact that life as they knew it has ended. Families and friends also suffer. They don't know how to help and therefore become secondary victims of the disease. Traditionally, ICU units and have focused on just treatment, and patients, family, and friends suffered. Today, modern medical advances have expanded to include empathy, and have learned how to harness the power of an entire team to help the patient and their support network strengthen their resilience, cure what can be cured, and maintain meaning and purpose in life.

Palliative Care Nursing, Fifth Edition delivers advanced empirical, aesthetic, ethical and personal knowledge. This new edition brings an increased focus on outcomes, benchmarking progress, and goals of care. It expounds upon the importance of the cross-disciplinary collaboration introduced in the previous edition. Every chapter in Sections I, II, and III includes content written by a non-nursing member of the interprofessional team. Based on best-evidence and clinical practice guidelines, this text presents comprehensive, targeted interventions responsive to the needs of palliative and hospice patients and family. Each chapter contains compassionate, timely, appropriate, and cost-effective care for diverse populations across the illness trajectory.