Audience of one.
Hows & Whys
The de-skilling threat is real and asymmetric across specialties. Palliative care sits on the protected side of that asymmetry—because the highest-value things we do are the things machines are worst at.
Health Policy
We work in the places where evidence gets thin, emotions run hot, and the mysteries are real. It is the exact territory where sectarian certainty rushes in with confident answers, unfalsifiable frameworks, and the seductive promise that someone, somewhere, has figured it all out.
Health Policy
💡Start with Rachel Cohen Booth's excellent article in Vox, What happens when a city takes women’s unpaid work seriously? It catalyzed my thoughts below. Hospice prides itself on dignity at the end of life. But what about dignity for those doing the hardest work—unpaid caregivers? If
Opinion
I think this might be true, but I invite your commentary and reactions: The move toward “everyone with serious illness needs specialist palliative care” consumed a decade of oxygen and money while the harder, more consequential work—how to pay for specialist, team-based palliative care as defined by NQF/NCP
Changing the World
In specialist palliative care, we talk about “compassion training” as if it’s a discrete skill you can add to a checklist. Joan Halifax’s enactive model challenges that notion: compassion isn’t a module; it emerges when attentional clarity, affective balance, ethical intention, and embodied engagement cohere in context.
Changing the World
Dr. Whyte's right—and in palliative care, the stakes are even higher.
Changing the World
If you’ve ever wondered why working in healthcare, especially in Specialist Palliative Care, feels like its being pulverized by grinding gears, this essay is for you.
Changing the World
Let’s stop pretending that our health system is anything other than a Frankenstein’s monster stitched together from billing codes, productivity metrics, and cultural myths about heroism in medicine.
Communication Skills
From time-to-time, I will publish articles that have recently crossed my path with my analysis of what they tell us. This will be the first in that series.
Hows & Whys
Why listen to me? Because I’m not here to sell platitudes. I’m here to share the soapboxes I stand on every day, bust the myths that make care worse, and offer the kind of practical wisdom you only get when you’ve sat at the bedside for thousands of hours.
Hows & Whys
If you want evidence-driven insights, humor, and the occasional rant that makes you rethink how we care for people when it matters most, welcome aboard.