Palliatively Speaking

Palliatively Speaking Ep 14 - Teaching the World Palliative Care

[https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59f8ba771f318de4070432de/1ef6d982-9c9f-431c-b3a4-dbc771c6014b/PS_Episode_Paice.jpg?format=1000w] Palliatively Speaking Ep 14 - Teaching the World Palliative Care Dr. Toby Campbell Summary: In this episode of "Palliatively Speaking" host Toby Campbell interviews Dr. Judith Paice, the director of the Cancer Pain Program at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and co-chair of the 2023 American Society of Clinical Oncology guideline on opioid use for cancer pain. The conversation explores Dr. Paice's 25-year involvement with the End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC), a train-the-trainer program that has reached millions of healthcare professionals worldwide. Dr. Paice discusses how ELNEC  started with five planned courses, and then expanded to over 300 courses translated into multiple languages. The curriculum has been adapted for various audiences, including pediatric nurses, advanced practice nurses, and faculty. Using personal stories and anecdotes, Dr. Paice gives a closer look at the critical challenges in pain management, particularly the tension between managing cancer pain and the opioid epidemic. She emphasizes that oncology clinicians face unique pressures as they navigate both cancer pain management and opioid safety concerns. The conversation then shifts to a discussion about the importance of primary palliative care education for all oncology providers, not just specialist palliative care teams. Later in the episode, Dr. Paice is joined by Sarah Lowery, a nurse practitioner at OHSU and ELNEC international trainer, and a mentee of Dr. Paice. Both speakers reflect on mentorship as essential to professional development and organizational sustainability. Dr. Paice advises emerging leaders to recognize their unique contributions, overcome imposter syndrome, and offers tips for identifying potential mentees for a successful collaborative relationship.

Palliatively Speaking Ep 13 - Saving Hospice

Palliatively Speaking Ep 13 - Saving Hospice and Palliative Care Dr. Toby Campbell In this special episode, Toby Campbell sits down with palliative care legend Dr. Ira Byock for a candid, far-reaching conversation about the field's origins, its current challenges, and the path forward. Joined by the CEO of the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC),  Brynn Bowman, Byock reflects on his early days as a rural family medicine resident drawn to patients "put down the hall" and forgotten—a pull that would lead him to become one of hospice and palliative care's most influential voices. Forty years later, Byock pulls no punches in assessing the field he helped build. He calls out the "epidemic" of fraudulent hospice programs, the unacceptable variability in quality, and what he sees as palliative care's timidity in advocating for itself. According to Dr. Byock, the solution to these challenges lies in establishing clear clinical and programmatic standards and a willingness to embrace, rather than hide from, healthcare's capitalist reality. Brynn Bowman offers a generational counterpoint, acknowledging the field's growing pains while finding reasons for optimism: culture change, an undeniable value proposition, and emerging work on quality standards that could finally separate excellent care from the merely mediocre. This episode is a master class in leadership, honesty, and the courage to speak truth—even to the field you love.

Palliatively Speaking Ep 12 - Empowering All The Caregivers

[https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59f8ba771f318de4070432de/ee088e0c-e69b-49ec-bfd4-db4fa45478fa/PS_Episode_Brody.jpg?format=1000w] Palliatively Speaking Ep 12 - Empowering All The Caregivers Dr. Toby Campbell In this thoughtful and engaging episode, geriatric and palliative care nurse scientist Dr. AB Brody shatters illusions about dementia care with hard-won wisdom. Having witnessed his own grandparents suffer through a system that prioritized medical protocols over human dignity, Brody now leads a quiet revolution in how we support caregivers. The most important revelation? In the marathon of supporting caregivers, we've been asking the wrong question. Not "What's wrong?" but "What's going right?". This simple flip was honed through years of house calls and hospice work. It uncovers hidden reservoirs of strength in both patients and caregivers.  Through his nonprofit Oliviato Health, Brody bridges the dangerous gap between research and reality, developing tools and resources that reach caregivers where they are and help healthcare systems adopt evidence-based practices that would elevate hospice care. Dr. Brody recounts how hospice teams, when properly supported, can transform from crisis managers to guardians of quality life.  Dr. Brody is joined by the community leader, Elder Denise Lawson. His community engagement work with Elder Denise proves that true change happens not in ivory towers, but in church basements and living rooms where caregivers gather. We're failing dementia families not from lack of science, but lack of imagination. The solution lies in listening to caregivers' wisdom, to patients' unspoken needs, and to those fleeting moments of connection that make the unbearable bearable. As Brody puts it: "Caregiving isn't a problem to solve. It's a relationship to honor."

Palliatively Speaking Ep 11 - From Founder to Successor

[https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59f8ba771f318de4070432de/962265b9-5f71-46d6-a3b0-55ec157c8845/PS_Episode_Gonzales.jpg?format=1000w] Palliatively Speaking - Ep 11 - From Founder to Successor Dr. Toby Campbell Title: From Founder to Successor Summary:  Guest: Matt Gonzales Guest’s guest: Ira Byock This episode offers a masterclass in humanizing healthcare. Join host Dr. Campbell for a fascinating conversation with Dr. Matt Gonzalez, a software engineer, a palliative care physician, and a leader overseeing 51 hospitals on the West Coast. The conversation begins with a discussion on the future of empathetic care and the critical importance of presence. Dr. Gonzales argues that the system must be redesigned to allow clinicians to do what they entered medicine to do: connect. He shares the monumental success of scaling goals-of-care conversations from 7% to 85% across the Providence health system, which is an accomplishment he attributes not to lecturing clinicians, but to dismantling systemic barriers and "making the right way easy." The discussion shifts to lessons about leadership as Dr. Gonzales is joined by his mentor, Dr. Ira Byock. Together, they unpack the secrets to a successful leadership transition—built on trust, joy, and the courage to lead from a place of love, not fear. Dr. Byock shares the crucial wisdom for a founder to truly let go, allowing the next leader to step into their own authentic skin. To close, our guests explore a future in which AI handles paperwork, freeing doctors for the sacred work of listening. But Matt issues a crucial caveat: AI can generate the perfect empathetic words, but without genuine human intent and authenticity behind them, they are remain empty words. This episode is an inspiring look at the leaders who are putting the "care" back into healthcare.

Palliatively Speaking Ep 10 - Transforming Death in America

[https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/59f8ba771f318de4070432de/37f3b6bf-ccd6-4cf5-b0d5-5a33c401217a/PS_Episode_Pantilat.jpg?format=1000w] Palliatively Speaking with Dr. Toby Campbell - Ep 10 - Dr. Steven Pantilat and Gretchen Schwarze Dr. Toby Campbell Guest: Steven Pantilat Guest’s guest: Gretchen Schwarze What does it take to build not just a career, but an entire field of medicine? In this new episode, we sit down with a true pioneer, Dr. Steven Pantilat, the founder of the Division of Palliative Medicine at UCSF. Dr. Pantilat takes us back to the early days of palliative care, a time before it even had a name, when he and a small cohort of innovators sort of made it up through the groundbreaking Project on Death in America (PDIA). He reveals how this experience of finding his tribe; was a revelation that shaped his lifelong commitment to mentorship. We explore his philosophy that transformed him from a mentee into the Uber mentor as described by his guest and mentee, Dr. Gretchen Schwarze. Dr. Pantilat shares his core principles for powerful mentorship, including the crucial difference between being & nice and being kind,, why the best mentors care about the whole person, and how to give feedback that truly helps people grow. Join us for a deeply human look at the art of mentorship, the birth of the palliative care movement, and the wisdom that comes from understanding that our time, and our tribe, are everything.