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The views and opinions expressed in our blog series are those of the authors and are not necessarily supported by CareSearch, Flinders University and/or the Australian Government Department of Health.
To continue our celebration of the International Year of Nurses and Midwife, we are featuring blogs on nurses and their critical role in providing palliative care and how they can be supported further. Kylie Ash, National Project Manager for PCC4U and Melissa Slattery, Head of Discipline for Nursing at EQUALS International, discuss the need for a nationally consistent palliative care education for enrolled nurses, and how the PCC4U EN Toolkit and EQUALs Diploma of Nursing can help.
Dying to Know Day (August 8th) is an annual campaign that encourages community members and organisations to host events that encourage critical discussion and planning around death, dying, and grief. Holly Rankin-Smith, Communication Director at The Groundswell Project, discusses their campaign and the importance of having these critical conversations particularly during this COVID-19 pandemic.
Some patients do not receive adequate pain and symptom relief at the end of life, causing distress to patients, families and healthcare professionals. It is unclear whether undertreatment of symptoms occurs, in part, because of nurses' concerns about legal and/or disciplinary repercussions if the patient dies after medication is administered. Dr Katrin Gerber, Professor Lindy Willmott, Professor Ben White, and Distinguished Professor Patsy Yates from Queensland University of Technology discuss the findings from their research and interviews with nurses from different clinical backgrounds and settings about their concerns when providing pain and symptom relief to patients near the end of life.
palliAGED provides palliative care practice and evidence guidance for our aged care workforce. Susan Gravier and Robyn Dutschke, Research Associates from CareSearch and palliAGED, discuss the importance of psychosocial care in providing quality palliative care and how the new palliAGED pages on the topic were developed.
Art therapy is used in palliative care to compliment a holistic approach to care and to augment traditional clinical and medical approaches. In this blog, Estelle Chapple, an Art Therapist for Central Adelaide Palliative Care, and Michelle Cripps, Director for Centre for Creative Health, discuss the impact of art therapy in palliative care settings.