Overcoming Obstacles to Palliative Care: Lessons to Learn from Our Physician Counterparts

Vet Clin North Am Small Anim Pract. 2019 May;49(3):387-397. doi: 10.1016/j.cvsm.2019.01.007. Epub 2019 Mar 4.

Abstract

In the past 40 years, the field of palliative care for people faced many of the same obstacles in development and expansion that veterinary palliative care now confronts. A series of interviews with pioneers in human palliative care revealed what those early obstacles were professionally, personally, and institutionally. Many of the hurdles are strikingly similar to what veterinary professionals are currently facing in their attempts to grow palliative care as both an independent subspecialty and an integrated part of general practice. We can translate their experiences and successes to help veterinary palliative care flourish.

Keywords: Development of palliative care; Integrating veterinary palliative care; Obstacles to palliative care; Veterinary palliative care.

Publication types

  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Communication Barriers*
  • Humans
  • Interviews as Topic
  • Pain / prevention & control
  • Pain / veterinary*
  • Palliative Care*
  • Physicians*
  • United States
  • Veterinarians*
  • Veterinary Medicine / trends*