Does Care Exclude Cure in Palliative Care?

Abstract

This article, on the basis of an extensive analysis of one case history, formulates a critical question about whether hospices / units are the best settings to deliver optimal palliative care. The case history device allows the authors to raise questions that are reflective of a much broader range of patient experiences. The viewpoint is adopted that the best way to increase the quality of life for persons who may die is by refusing to separate the concepts of care and cure. Also, informed patient choices must take precedence over the perspectives of either cure- or care-oriented professionals. Although palliative care developed many of its service goals in reaction to the care that the dying received in acute care facilities, its future requires that these earlier assumptions be examined. Readers are asked to consider the questions posed in this article as they relate to their own settings.