Rephrasing my previous post.
I'm looking for discussion of new developments in the field, including by members of non-physician disciplines (especially social work), research, coping with challenges of the daily work. CEs, journals, books, are fine, or forum in the style of r/emergencymedicine or other specialty forums (it seems like r/palliativecare is no longer offered).
I can't see any answers that were previously offered, sorry.
One of my greatest frustrations in medicine has been that outside of larger cities or academics, many docs and/or HCW/ teams do not practice palliative care properly (before hospice need is declared).
Either refuse to do it outright (worried about malpractice from removing certain treatments), or do it with minimal oversight or education of the patient, HCW, or the carers.
And no one left to refer a case to after I make the rounds of phone calls for a remote patient and get refusals. Not only for adults, but it's far worse if the patient is a child.
Most places I've worked do not practice palliative care properly. It's an uphill battle.
I think some of the member boards on AAHPM are pretty active. You might want to check those out.
AAHPM has active discussion boards which are mostly physicians. HPNA has discussion boards which are mostly RNs and NPs. If you want social worker discussion, there is SWHPN but I don’t know how active their discussions are (if any).
SWHPN has monthly CEs and an annual conference. 2026 is being held online in May.
Good to know! Thank you!
Centre to Advance Palliative Care does offer education as well. If your institution covers it, consider using it as a resource too.
Well for one, there aren't a lot of new developments in the field. If anything, a lot of discussion centers around trying to maintain existence or cope with providing services despite financial limitations. There's not a lot of new groundbreaking research happening...
CAPC is a good starting resource. I agree the AAHPM forums are relatively active, though honestly I never got a ton out of them for the more complex issues.
Try and see if you have a state hospice / palliative care organization. If there's an academic medical center with strong palliative care service near you, you may be able to get in on their educational series/grand rounds. NHPCO (now the "National Alliance for Care at Home") is another org to look into. GeriPal podcast is at least a nice way keep abreast of recent issues/topics.
This is really good advice, thank you! I feel like I don't even know enough to know what is known (ie that there are no new developments) (EDIT: I have two HPNA certs but, lmao). I used to use a lot of resources from the palliative fellowship at the quaternary care ctr I worked at, but moving to community health I am losing those resources--I'll check for state orgs!
I mean it's a bit of an exaggeration that there's NOTHING happening - obviously plenty of palliative and palliative adjacent research is happening but it's mostly re-hashing of topics (does advance care planning work? are any usual treatments effective in cachexia syndromes? do anticholinergics provide benefit in terminal respiratory secretions? etc)
Another thought that's a bit more on the extreme end is if your state offers medical aid in dying, those folks tend to be pretty close-knit and may be another avenue to explore for supportive stuff...
You beat me to it - CAPC for good foundational modules and they do have more current webinars, and GeriPal podcast for current topics and research (they do a good job of having multiple disciplines on too).