Thank you for my recent PEPA placement as understanding of palliative or supportive care has improved.
It was interesting to note that just like me before attending the PEPA program my colleagues also thought of palliative care as being limited to the care given to the terminal and actively dying person. This view has now changed and we now know supportive and palliative care starts long before that stage. We now realise that all the patients under out care need supportive and palliative care considerations as they are living with a life limiting illness and a huge burden of symptoms and psycho-social problems which make quality of life poor.
Managing their symptoms and psycho-social problems as they arise through supportive palliative care improves quality of life.
We are now aware of when to refer a patients to the renal supportive care clinic (RSCC) and how to do it. As opposed to before we are now more inclined to refer patients to the RSCC and have already completed referrals.