Collective soul: The spirituality of an interdisciplinary palliative care team

2006 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
SHANE SINCLAIR ◽  
SHELLEY RAFFIN ◽  
JOSE PEREIRA ◽  
NANCY GUEBERT
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Palliative Care ◽  
Focus Groups ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Palliative Care Team ◽  
Care Team ◽  
Cancer Center ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Spiritual Journeys ◽  
Common Goals

Objective:Although spirituality as it relates to patients is gaining increasing attention, less is known about how health care professionals (HCP) experience spirituality personally or collectively in the workplace. This study explores the collective spirituality of an interdisciplinary palliative care team, by studying how individuals felt about their own spirituality, whether there was a shared sense of a team spirituality, how spirituality related to the care the team provided to patients and whether they felt that they provided spiritual care.Methods:A qualitative autoethnographic approach was used. The study was conducted in a 10-bed Tertiary Palliative Care Unit (TPCU) in a large acute-care referral hospital and cancer center. Interdisciplinary team members of the TPCU were invited to participate in one-to-one interviews and/or focus groups. Five interviews and three focus groups were conducted with a total of 20 participants.Results:Initially participants struggled to define spirituality. Concepts of spirituality relating to integrity, wholeness, meaning, and personal journeying emerged. For many, spirituality is inherently relational. Others acknowledged transcendence as an element of spirituality. Spirituality was described as being wrapped in caring and often manifests in small daily acts of kindness and of love, embedded within routine acts of caring. Palliative care served as a catalyst for team members' own spiritual journeys. For some participants, palliative care represented a spiritual calling. A collective spirituality stemming from common goals, values, and belonging surfaced.Significance of results:This was the first known study that focused specifically on the exploration of a collective spirituality. The culture of palliative care seems to foster spiritual reflection among health care professionals both as individuals and as a whole. While spirituality was difficult to describe, it was a shared experience often tangibly present in the provision of care on all levels.

Suicidal ideation at end-of-life: The palliative care team's role

2003 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANN GOELITZ
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Palliative Care ◽  
Suicidal Ideation ◽  
End Of Life ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Terminally Ill ◽  
Social Supports ◽  
Palliative Care Team ◽  
Care Team ◽  
Hastened Death

Objective: To report on the case of a terminally ill patient who expresses suicidal ideation.Methods: As this case demonstrates, suicidality at end-of-life poses numerous challenges for the palliative care team. In this case, a 49-year-old man with locally extensive head and neck cancer refused all life-prolonging treatment and expressed a desire to hasten his own death. Other issues, such as chemical dependency and lack of social supports, complicated his care.Results: Suicidality lessened as continuity of care, with ongoing assessments and interventions, addressed sources of suffering and built relationships with health care professionals.Significance of results: This case highlights the observation that desire for hastened death fluctuates for patients at end-of-life and may be influenced by factors under the control of the palliative care team.

Interdisciplinary Education in Palliative Care: A Bold Strategy, Solution and Political Statement

2012 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 375-386 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Breiddal
Keyword(s):  
Palliative Care ◽  
Care Setting ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Palliative Care Team ◽  
Care Team ◽  
Interdisciplinary Education ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Palliative Care Setting ◽  
Political Statement ◽  
Health Canada

Harsh experience reveals that preparing the interdisciplinary palliative care team members cannot be accomplished by sequestering students in single-discipline training. By combining different ways of knowing and being that are the underlying tenets of interdisciplinary education, we must—by design, curriculum, teaching strategies, and research—reflect the nature and practice of the interdisciplinary palliative care team. This kind of education is an imperative if we are going to meet our own goals to provide physical, emotional, and spiritual care to people at end-of-life. As educators, we must take to heart the responsibility to prepare students with the skills to apply their knowledge within the context of the palliative care setting, as practiced by the interdisciplinary team. This position is supported in the literature, is recommended by Health Canada, and is affirmed by experience in the field.

scholarly journals A qualitative exploration of interactional and organizational determinants of collaboration in cancer palliative care settings: Family members’, health care professionals’ and key informants’ perspectives

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (10) ◽  
pp. e0256965
Author(s):  
Marco Bennardi ◽  
Nicola Diviani ◽  
Georg Stüssi ◽  
Piercarlo Saletti ◽  
Claudia Gamondi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Palliative Care ◽  
Focus Groups ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Care Delivery ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Personal Characteristics ◽  
Social Needs ◽  
Framework Analysis ◽  
Key Informants

As life expectancy has increased, a growing number of people experience conditions, including cancers, that carry complex health and social needs. Palliative care services have the potential to address these needs but face significant obstacles. One major obstacle is suboptimal interprofessional collaboration. This study’s goal was an in-depth exploration of interactional and organizational barriers and supports of collaboration in palliative care in Switzerland. We sought the perspectives of health care professionals, patients’ family members and leaders and experts in oncology/palliative care delivery (key informants) through interviews and focus groups with fifty HPs and key informants and ten patients’ family members. Qualitative analyses of interviews and focus groups used framework analysis. We identified three major themes of interaction: personal characteristics, communication, and connectedness with other health care professionals; and three major organizational themes: service characteristics, standardized communication and processes, and service coordination and promotion. Based on our findings, we recommend that health care professionals consider strategies to increase their collaboration and communication skills and opportunities to interact. We advocate the implementation of methods for coordinating services, standardization of consultation/referral procedures and communication between health care professionals, and the promotion of underutilized services to foster successful, sustainable collaboration.

Interdisciplinary Palliative Care Teams

2019 ◽  
pp. 89-97
Author(s):  
Polly Mazanec ◽  
Rebekah Reimer ◽  
Jessica Bullington ◽  
Patrick J. Coyne ◽  
Herman Harris ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Palliative Care ◽  
Care Delivery ◽  
Medical Center ◽  
Academic Medical Center ◽  
Interdisciplinary Team ◽  
Palliative Care Team ◽  
Care Team ◽  
Patient Centered ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Palliative Care Teams

This chapter defines the composition and roles of interdisciplinary team members on a palliative care team. The team has the responsibility to deliver patient-centered, family-focused care based on the recommendations from the National Consensus Project Guidelines for Quality Palliative Care. Within this chapter, interdisciplinary team members from an academic medical center discuss their respective roles on the team and describe how these roles supported a patient and family case study. The chapter provides an overview of the four most common models of palliative care delivery: inpatient consult teams, with or without a palliative care unit; ambulatory palliative care teams; community-based palliative care teams; and hospice teams. An introduction to essential considerations in the development of a palliative care team and the important components for maintaining a healthy, functional team are described.

Development and Initial Validation of the Caregiver Perceptions About Communication With Clinical Team Members (CAPACITY) Measure

2017 ◽  
Vol 76 (6) ◽  
pp. 784-806 ◽  
Author(s):  
Courtney Harold Van Houtven ◽  
Katherine E. M. Miller ◽  
Emily C. O’Brien ◽  
Jennifer L. Wolff ◽  
Jennifer Lindquist ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Discriminant Validity ◽  
Internal Consistency Reliability ◽  
Health Care Team ◽  
Performance Measure ◽  
Care Team ◽  
Clinical Team ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Capacity Measure

Despite the important role that family caregivers play managing the care of persons with complex health needs, little is known about how caregivers perceive themselves to be recognized and valued by health care professionals. Our objective was to develop and validate a novel measure, the CAregiver Perceptions About Commun Ication with Clinical Team members (CAPACITY) instrument. Questions focus on perceived quality of communication with the health care team and the extent to which caregivers believe that the health care team considers their capacity and preferences in decision making. A confirmatory factor analysis supported a two-factor solution addressing communication and capacity. Internal consistency reliability was .90 for the communication domain and .93 for the capacity domain. Correlations between these two subscales and individual difference measures provided evidence of convergent and discriminant validity. The CAPACITY instrument may be a useful performance measure that quantifies the extent to which caregivers’ experience person- and family-centered health care.

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