Literature Review

[Canada] The discourse of medical assistance in dying and its relationship with hospice palliative care in Canada: An integrative literature reviewJournal of Advanced Nursing; Jennifer D Dorman, D Shelley Raffin Bouchal, Eric Wasylenko, Shane Sinclair; 5/25Three themes identified from the data were the relationship between MAiD [medical assistance in dying] and HPC [hospice pallaitive care], suffering in the context of MAiD, and moral distress and moral uncertainty in providing or not providing MAiD. The discourse around the relationship between MAiD and HPC is complex and contextual. Personal and professional understandings of end-of-life care differ and influence perspectives on how and whether MAiD and hospice palliative care can be reconciled. Findings consider how the concepts of end of life, MAiD, HPC, suffering, and moral distress influence and are influenced by the discourse of dying. 

American Geriatrics Society position statement: Making medical treatment decisions for unrepresented older adultsJournal of the American Geriatric Society; Joseph D Dixon, Aruna V Josyula, Noelle Marie Javier, Yael Zweig, Mriganka Singh, Luke Kim, Niranjan Thothala, Timothy W Farrell; 5/25This paper is an official position statement of the American Geriatrics Society (AGS) and updates the 2017 AGS position statement, Making Medical Treatment Decisions for Unbefriended Older Adults. In this updated position statement, the term "unbefriended" is replaced by "unrepresented" as a term that is more value-neutral, more accurately describes the circumstance in which a person without medical decision-making capacity does not have recognized surrogate representation, and better aligns with increasingly preferred terminology as reflected in recent medical literature. We define unrepresented older adults as those who (1) lack decisional capacity to provide informed consent for a particular medical treatment, (2) have not executed an advance directive that addresses the medical treatment at hand and lack capacity to do so, and (3) lack representation from a surrogate decision-maker (i.e., family, friend, or legally authorized surrogate).  The process of arriving at treatment decisions for this population should follow standards of procedural fairness and include capacity assessment, search for potential surrogates, team-based efforts to determine the patient's values and preferences, and steps to guard against bias. Proactive measures are needed to identify older adults at risk for becoming unrepresented. This position statement also calls for national efforts to reduce state-to-state variability in legal approaches for unrepresented patients.

Celebrating Father’s Day after your Dad has passed Delaware Hospice, Milford, DE; retrieved from www.delawarehospice.org on 6/12/25 The days leading up to Father’s Day can be difficult for those who have lost a father. Father’s Day is surrounded by consumerism—and seeing all the commercials, greeting cards, and restaurant specials can be emotionally overwhelming. The holiday can be especially hard for those experiencing their first Father’s Day without their dad, and they may be tempted to avoid the holiday altogether. However, Father’s Day doesn’t have to be about gifts or grilling out with Dad. There are still many ways to celebrate, remember, and honor your father this Father’s Day, even if he is no longer physically with you.

Celebrating Father’s Day when Dad is on hospice Roze Room Hospice, Culver City, CA; retrieved from www.rozeroom.org on 6/12/25Father’s Day is often synonymous with backyard cookouts, gifts, cards and large family gatherings. Honoring your father or a father figure means celebrating the role this important person has played in your life. It can be a sentimental day where we slow down and consider the gift this person has been in our lives. But if your father is in hospice care, Father’s Day can take on even more significance. You may believe the day will be filled with sadness and unease. But truly capturing this day will be a gift to your dad and all those who love him. Here are five ways to celebrate Father’s Day when your dad is on hospice.

Healing hearts: How palliative care staff reunited a father with his daughters after nearly 40 years apart The Daily Scan - Cancer; by Sondi Bruner; 11/25/24, published in our newsletter 11/25/24Leah Duval and Tanya Ellis don’t have many childhood memories of their father. They recall fragments, like his bright smile and building snowmen in the backyard. And then one day, when they were three and five years old, Glenn Ellis disappeared completely. ​As the girls grew up, they learned their father had schizophrenia, which they guessed played a large role in his disappearance. ... The family searched for years in the 1980s and never found him. The sisters had no choice but to move forward with their lives, though they never gave up hope that their father was still out there. ... Then, on May 14th 2024, nearly 40 years after their father vanished from their hometown in Ontario, Tanya received an unexpected phone call from across the country. It was from Siobhan Gallagher, a social worker at May’s Place Hospice in Vancouver, BC. She had a patient named Glenn Ellis, and he was looking for his daughters. [Click on the title's link to read this story.] ... “People can hold onto grudges for their entire life and they don’t allow healing to happen,” says Tanya. “Have an open heart and an open mind. Just let things go, because we’re just all humans trying to do the best we can in this world.”

Grandad rehearsed his funeral 10 years ago – Now his final wishes come true after his passing Good News Network; 7/28/24; published in our newsletter 8/1/24A British senior who pre-planned his funeral and rehearsed it on TV in 2013, had his final wishes come true after peacefully passing away in June. Malcolm Brocklehurst, who is a renowned aircraft expert, commissioned an orange airplane-shaped coffin ten years ago from Crazy Coffins, an offshoot of a Nottingham-based traditional coffin and urn maker in England that helps people customize their funeral. The grandfather-of-nine was filmed sitting in the coffin on Channel 5’s Bizarre Burials, which also featured a rehearsal of the ceremony that the former aerospace engineer coordinated to the last detail. The plane was aptly called Tango One and numbered with MB 1934—his initials and year of his birth. He also announced that he wanted the funeral procession to leave from the stadium pitch where his favorite football team, Blackpool FC, plays. ... But speaking about the rehearsal in 2013, he said it was all “light-hearted fun.” 

Bo-Hawg & Evermore, a love story & a fish fry: A deep-fried meaning found in grief Evermore Newsletter - "Community, Family, Grief"; 6/9/25 Grease popping, no breeze, standing in direct sunlight, lifting coolers with 50 pounds of grouper, hands coated in cornmeal and batter, and a heat index of 107. Ah, those were the days. That’s what it was like cooking seafood with my pops. My man LOVED this. A big reason is because he did this with his dad growing up. Later in life they began volunteering their services (and fish) as a way to help raise money for youth sports in our hometown. They would fry grouper, boil peanuts, boil shrimp — you name it, they did it. So, it was only natural that my siblings and I grew up sharing this tradition with him.  ... [Click on the title to continue reading this inspiring father-son story about both volunteering and coping with grief.]

Families, volunteers share stories of finding peace through hospice: Hospice "allowed her to just be a daughter to her father as he was dying" Salina Post; by Cristina Janney, Hays Post; 6/29/24; posted in our newsletter 7/2/24This is a two-part series on hospice care in northwest Kansas. Dalene Juenemann and her father, Dean, had to make the difficult decision to enter hospice care after he was diagnosed with bladder cancer. “He was just such a social guy and someone was in a couple times a week,” she said. “They were checking in on him and it was that security blanket he had.” ... He didn’t want to go through aggressive chemo and he didn’t qualify for a bladder removal because of his age. “He chose quality of life,” she said. "It was that final decision that we are done with everyone wanting a piece of me. I'm just going to enjoy life," she said. Dalene's father, Dean Shearer, was a patient of NWKareS, Hospice of Northwest Kansas, which serves 16 counties from Interstate 70 to the Nebraska border and Trego County to the Colorado border. ... She said the extra care hospice offered allowed her to just be a daughter to her father as he was dying. [Click on the title's link to continue reading stories from families and volunteers at NWKAreS.]

College Station store hosts Hospice Brazos Valley’s benefit this Father’s Day KBTX, Bryan, TX; by Abigail Truman; 6/9/25 This Father’s Day, Hospice Brazos Valley is partnering with Murdoch’s Ranch and Home to encourage families to spend their holiday with classic cars, barbecue, and supporting a good cause. Guys, Gears, and Grills is an event that gives you a chance to do all of dad’s favorites while raising money to support Brazos Valley Hospice. “We’re the only nonprofit hospice in the Brazos Valley, meaning we’ll never send you a bill... And we gave over $250,000 in complementary care last year,” Collen Broussaurd with Brazos Valley Hospice explained its mission.

To Be or To Do? Women and Men's different styles of grievingComposing Life Out of Loss; by Joy Berger; retrieved 6/12/25

Quality of life while dying: Cutting edge hospice center opening in Colorado Springs NBC KOAA-5, Colorado Springs, CO; by Bill Folsom; 6/10/25 A major improvement to hospice care is coming to Colorado Springs. “This facility really does meet a need that is not met any other way,” said Pikes Peak Hospice and Palliative Care, President Dawn Darvalics. Over the next couple of weeks the non-profit Pikes Peak Hospice is opening the only dedicated hospice inpatient care center in Colorado Springs. ... “Early in 2017 my wife Sarah was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, ...” said Pikes Peak Hospice Foundation, Board of Trustees Chair, Michael Healy. ... He says his family would have benefited from this new cutting-edge facility. It goes beyond medicine. It includes things like gardens, homey gathering spaces, an area dedicated to veteran support, a chapel, a place for kids, and a family style kitchen. ... Plaques around the building show the many donors helping raise the $8.5 million goal the Pikes Peak Hospice Foundation is still working to complete.

‘Let’s talk’: How to help families have difficult conversations Yale Medicine; by Carrie Macmillan; 6/10/25 At a time when modern medicine is allowing people to enjoy longer, fuller lives, mortality is not always a chief concern. But when a serious illness occurs, the topic becomes unavoidable. This became especially clear during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic when hospitals were overrun with patients, many with grim prognoses. “The pandemic gave all of us a sense that life can be short and there’s the very real possibility of dying,” says Jennifer Kapo, MD, director of the Palliative Care Program at Yale New Haven Hospital. “It opened the door for us to talk more about death and have a better sense of our mortality.” ...

A ship in a harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for. ~ John A. Shedd