Palliative care is an area of medicine which has seen rapid advance in recent years. I am pleased to note that a fellowship training program in palliative care is now being established in the Family Practice Department at our University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. I can attest to the truth of that statement. Time and again, I have seen patients experiencing terrible pain while their disease was being treated. And yet, those same patients were freed of pain as soon as they went into hospice care, where they received palliative treatment.
Hospice care works.
It is true that the medications used to alleviate pain may, in some instances, hasten death. However, the intent is clear. Physical comfort, not immediate death, is the goal. Palliative medicine is not euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide. My prayer is that the near future will bring at least one more modern medical advance in this area.