Palliative Medicine Teaching

03/09/2026

📑 You’ve had to become a project manager almost overnight.

📆 Coordinating hospital appointments, blood tests, scans, treatments, health professional visits, phone calls…

Even something that used to be simple, like picking up a prescription, has become complicated:

- is this medication correct?
- correct amount?
- will we run out? (trying to make sure that is not over the weekend or public holiday)
- what is missing?
- if your usual pharmacy doesn’t have it, who does?

At the same time, often still working, needing to keep the household and family going 💪🏻😴

🤯 With a NASA-level timetable that now seems to be resting on your shoulders

⭐️⭐️There are no easy solutions but here are 10 practical suggestions that might make things easier ⭐️⭐️

✅ 1. If you have “a village”, now is the time to call them. If you find yourself hesitating, think “would I want to help if roles were reversed?”

✅ 2. Create a WhatsApp group, like “Sam’s team” to share updates easily and get extra help when you need it. Make a list of jobs you can delegate and hand them out when people offer to help

✅ 3. Make a “who to call when” list of useful phone numbers. GP, out of hours, community teams, palliative care, pharmacy, emergency services.

✅ 4. Set up a calendar to mark appointments, when prescriptions need collecting, etc. Colour code it and stick on the wall or consider an electronic calendar to share with key supportive people

✅ 5. Take someone else with you to important meetings to write notes or ask to record the conversation

✅ 6. Keep a running questions list. Write them down when they pop in your head and ask at the next opportunity.

✅ 7. Use a regular medication timetable and record when you give extra top-up medications (prn). This is really helpful for the symptom control/palliative team.

✅ 8. Prepare before any crises happen. Start to get paperwork sorted out. Keep a hospital bag packed. Have discussions about what your loved one would or would not want if they were less well.

✅ 9. Don’t try to keep up your usual standards for everything else. People won’t mind if you forget their birthday. It doesn’t matter if it ends up being the same meal every day.

✅ 10. Take breaks. If you have the opportunity, get out and do something you enjoy. Even better if you can make it a regular thing. Don’t feel guilty. Caring is hard and you need to look after yourself too.





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This is the third in a short series of LinkedIn posts I’m writing for people supporting someone they love through serious illness — some of the things I wish families were told sooner.

Here are the first two:
https://l1nk.dev/pdwp9og
https://sl1nk.com/3jxv3x8

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Hi, 👋🏻 I’m Katie Weatherstone, a UK-trained Palliative Medicine Consultant.

Follow me on LinkedIn for topics related to the experiences of people living with serious or life-limiting illness, and the people who love and care for them.

24/08/2026

Every palliative care experience matters - and everyone’s voice is welcome.

Whether you’re a patient, carer, family member, volunteer or health professional, we want to hear from you.

What worked? What didn’t work? Or, what do you hope the future will look like?

Submit your story here: https://www.victoriapalliativecare.com/tell-your-story

24/08/2026

Every child deserves a life free from unnecessary pain, surrounded by love, dignity, and compassionate care. 🧡

Yet, worldwide, more than 21 million children need palliative care—and the vast majority cannot access it. ICPCN is on a mission to .

It’s time to bridge the divide between the children who desperately need care, pain relief, and emotional support, and those who actually receive it.

👉 How you can help:
Visit the link below to learn more and download the toolkit.
Show your support and endorse the campaign.
Share this post to raise awareness.
Stand up for every child's right to palliative care.
🔗 https://icpcn.org/close-the-gap/

23/08/2026

"Young people are often the subjects of care, but not always active participants in conversations about their care."

Ronald Chau, a doctoral candidate in Clinical Psychology at the University of Auckland, is trying to change that. His research focuses on adolescents and young adults aged 16–24 living with life-limiting conditions — a group who often fall through the gap between paediatric and adult services, too old for one, too young to feel at home in the other.

If you are a young person aged 16–24 living with a serious illness in Aotearoa, or know someone who is, this research wants to hear your story. 📖 Click the link to read more and find out how to participate: https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/news/2026/08/19/young-voices-sought-for-pioneering-palliative-care-research.html

22/08/2026

21/08/2026

“These findings extend the evidence base
beyond descriptive workforce analyses by quantifying the implications of workforce trajectories for access to care and highlighting the limitations of workforce growth as a sole policy response.

Addressing these gaps will require a fundamental reorientation of palliative care delivery, including greater integration with generalist providers, more flexible and geographically responsive service models, and planning approaches that explicitly align capacity with population need.

While grounded in Australian data, the challenges identified are likely to be shared across high-income health systems facing similar demographic and workforce pressures.”

21/08/2026

In our latest People of Palliative Care story, Melissa shares what paediatric palliative care meant for her family and her daughter, Emily.

Two days before Emily died, her hospital room was transformed into a birthday party. For Melissa, it captured everything paediatric palliative care had given her family over four years: the chance to make precious memories together.

When the palliative care team asked if there was anything they could do, Melissa knew immediately what she wanted. Emily had turned four a few days earlier, but she'd been in hospital and hadn't been able to celebrate with her twin sister, Eloise.

The family has chosen to remain anonymous. Names in this story have been changed, and the rainbow image was shared with us by the family.

Read the full story: https://bit.ly/3SE8m4J

21/08/2026

New resources from caring@home are available to help Support at Home providers build care workers’ confidence and capability in delivering high-quality end-of-life care.

The resources include practical care guides, videos and symptom management tip sheets to support comfort and care for people and their families at home.

Explore the resources: https://bit.ly/4fTTPuJ

16/08/2026

Meet Jenny. 👋 She’s receiving end of life care in our West Midlands Hospice. Here's what Jenny wants you to know about dying – from someone who is. 💛

1. I can make the choices I want to make and I’m supported to make those choices. The care I’ve had here means I feel well enough to say this is what I want and I'm being listened to, I cannot ask for anything better than that. I’ve had a good life and Marie Curie is enabling me to have a good death because I’m being supported. That empowers me so much.

2. Say I love you. I text people to say I love them every morning so they know I'm still alive and I've made it to another day. Hopefully at some point those messages will be a comfort for them when they need it and I hope it’ll help them remember me with a smile.

3. In life and death, we want to be treated as ourselves. The Marie Curie team treat me as me. They've given me my dignity. We have a laugh and a joke because that's just me. I swear a lot and I want to make people smile because, you know, I don't want people to be sad. That's not me. They've read my character very well and they are reflecting it back at me with their care and humour and that's just flipping wonderful. Because in life and death, we want to be treated as ourselves, not as a patient, not as a number.

4. In hospital you might feel helpless because you're not well enough to take charge of your care. It was a very traumatic time for my family, I was stuck there and no-one seemed interested. I’m lucky because I had my family fighting to get me here where we’re now all being taken care of – there’s nothing to be scared about dying if you’re well supported.

5. Palliative care needs to be properly funded so everyone can get the care and support they need. I don't know the ins and outs of government funding, but I know it's not right and it's not fair that what you get depends on where you live. My dream would be that everyone could have an experience like mine. I've always said how grateful I am to be supported on this last journey and I treat each new day as a gift.

6. I’m not scared of dying. Of course you have to allow yourself time to process it, it’s a lot to take in and you have to be kind to yourself. Everyone is different and everyone’s journey is different, but there's only so many things you can change in life, isn't there? Some you can, a lot of things you can't, so now I am in the place of acceptance. It’s all about the love. You come in with love. You want to go out with love. I think of death as redistributing energy and I hope my positive energy stays with the people around me for a long, long time.

13/08/2026

Sometimes the hardest moments are not being told bad news…

Sometimes the hardest moments are being told that things are uncertain….

“We don’t know what will happen”
“We don’t know if this will work”

Sometimes, you will be asked to make, or to help make, a decision where the outcomes seem vague or abstract

“With option 1, the treatment can be very successful but some people get severe side effects; with option 2, the treatment may not work as well but it is also easier to tolerate…”

🤯

⭐️The first important point is⭐️

“When a decision is hard, it is because neither option is better than the other overall. Hard choices are hard, not because of us or our ignorance, but because there is no best option”

How to make hard choices - Ruth Chang
https://lnkd.in/eSg82W9V

So, how can we try to navigate uncertainty when making decisions?

💫 Your loved one is your guiding star 💫

- if they can be involved, even just a little bit, their healthcare team should time conversations so they can be at their best with the most energy and focus possible

- If they can’t be involved,

💫their wishes
💫their preferences
💫the person they are
💫what has been important to them

will be your guide

🌱What would they have wanted?
🌱What have they said previously about similar situations?
🌱Do you have anything written down?

When neither option is better than the other, making a hard choice through uncertainty is an opportunity to express who your loved one is…

💫 Who will they be in these difficult moments?

💫 How do we best honour the person they are?






⭐️⭐️⭐️ This is the second in a short series of posts I’m going to write for people supporting someone they love through serious illness — some of the things I wish families were told sooner ⭐️⭐️⭐️

First post here: https://l1nk.dev/pdwp9og

—————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Hi, 👋🏻 I’m Katie Weatherstone, a UK-trained Palliative Medicine Consultant.

Follow me on LinkedIn for topics related to the experiences of people living with serious or life-limiting illness, and the people who love and care for them.