Palliative care nursing in a curative environment: an Australian perspective.

Abstract

This article describes the experiences of two nurses who developed palliative care specialty practices in acute general hospitals. The principal goal of, their work was to facilitate a smooth curative-palliative transition for patients, their families and the hospital staff. A major challenge was finding techniques to promote the palliative care philosophy in a curative environment. Staff in acute hospitals often work in a paradoxical situation between the ideologies of curative and palliative care. This situation would not occur in a hospice or palliative care unit. Many nurses apparently assume that palliative care is synonymous with terminal care and is therefore only needed when the patient is near to death. Palliative care is often perceived by acute hospital staff to be a separate entity rather than integral to the common goals for good patient care. The first part of this article describes the experiences of a palliative care clinical nurse working with staff and patients in a private hospital. The second part discusses a clinical lecturer post which was established as a joint appointment between a university and a major public hospital in Brisbane, Australia. The goal of the joint appointment was to enhance the blending of theory and practice and to gain deeper understanding about the experience of patients who are dealing with life-threatening disease.