PediPal

Dr. Tasha Faruqui is a pediatrician. Tasha Faruqui is the mother of Soraya, a child with medical complexity who is enrolled in pediatric hospice. For many years, Tasha tried to live two separate lives, worrying about how her identities would conflict with each other. In this episode, she talks with Sarah and Dan about learning to unify herself and how that ultimately made her a better physician an...

Guiding patients and families in complex, high-stakes medical decisions, can we clinicians ever be truly neutral, or are we doomed to always nudge toward our own preferences and biases? How does the architecture of the decisions we present shape the choices that others make? Sarah and Dan tackle these questions and more with three nudging experts: Dr. Aliza Olive (Cleveland Clinic), Dr. Laura Mill...

When all our best attempts fail to relieve suffering, we sometimes turn to palliative sedation to the point of unconsciousness. But how do we know if and when such a drastic intervention is the right choice? Sarah and Dan chat with Justin Baker and Tyler Tate about practical and ethical approaches to communicating about and implementing sedation for pediatric patients facing refractory symptoms at...

Where do ethics and palliative care overlap, and is there really no harm in doing both? Exercise your autonomy by choosing to listen to this episode, in which your beneficent hosts, Sarah and Dan, get ethical with Phoebe Winn and Bob Macauley, both palliative care physicians whose careers have also brought them to the realm of questions that sometimes just don't have answers. Thankfully, our...

There's a member of the pediatric palliative care team we all love but rarely acknowledge: The children's books we share with families that help them cope and process the terrible situations they face. In this episode, Sarah and Dan talk with Joanna Rowland, author of The Memory Box , The Memory Book , and The Memory Tree ; and Brennan Wood, author of A Kid's Book About Grief and Ex...

Dan and Sarah welcome back to the podcast two previous guests, Dr. Bob Macauley and Dr. Chris Adrian, to discuss writing books about pediatric palliative care, as well as how our clinical practice, narratives, and personal trauma can all interact in sometimes unexpected ways. Content warning: This episode includes discussion of child sexual abuse. Click the link here to buy Dr. Macauley's new...

We're back! Where did we go and why did we pause in the first place? You'll have to listen to the episode to find out all the details, but let's just say Dan conducted an extended and very personal investigation into the intersections of palliative care and bone marrow transplant. In this episode, Sarah interviews Dan about his experience as a patient and the take-home points he&apo...

"About suffering they were never wrong, / the old Masters: how well they understood / Its human position..." wrote W.H. Auden. For all that suffering seems to be central to our practice, how do we in pediatric palliative care actually stack up against Brueghel et al when it comes to understanding it, though? Dan and Sarah dig deep with guests Erica Salter, PhD, and Lauren Draper, MD to e...

Even before heading homeward from the Annual Assembly, Dan and Sarah decided that we needed to do an episode about one of our favorite presentations, palliative home transports. So in this interview, Ashley Autrey from Children's Hospital New Orleans and Lindsay Ragsdale from Kentucky Children's Hospital bring it on home to you, our audience, sharing their wisdom and expertise about how...

Perinatal Palliative Care! Thanks to a healthy dose of serendipity, PediPal finally wades into the ever-changing waters of palliative care before, during, and after birth. Sarah and Dan talk with Brian Carter , Kelstan Ellis , and Jenni Linebarger about their collaborative, creative work at the Children's Mercy Kansas City Fetal Health Center and beyond. So come for the birth planning, stay f...

PediPal goes on the road! Dan brings his microphone to Phoenix, AZ, for the 2024 Annual Assembly of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, ambushing unsuspecting guests with that classic PediPal question, "What are your take-home points?" Sarah, unable to attend the conference, shares her take-homes from home. Major thanks to AAHPM and all our enthusiastic participants: Tyler Badding, Gabe Dan...

Where do the fields of Palliative Care, Neurology, and PM&R overlap? Where can we learn more about how to approach the dreaded uncertainty of neurologic prognostication? In this episode! Overcoming some technical difficulties, Dan (kinda) and Sarah discuss the field of Pediatric Neuropalliative Care with Marina Ma and Lauren Treat.

The episode we really wanted to call "2 Julie 2 Hauer." Julie Hauer is back on PediPal! This time, she's here to discuss with Sarah and Dan what we do when we're beyond the guidelines, short on evidence, and way past the point of randomized control. What influences do culture and anecdote have on our prescribing? How much of pediatric palliative care is science and how much is...

It's 2024! As PediPal enters its fourth year, we want to take a moment to look back on what we've learned over the last three years. So for the first time (and hopefully the last), we have no guests, just the reflections, opinions, and bad jokes of the two pedi pals ourselves.

How and where do we draw the boundaries between ourselves and our patients and families? What other boundaries do we draw--or not draw so well--in pediatric palliative care? Here to discuss these questions and more are Stacy Remke, MSW, and Rev. Bentley Stewart.

Death. Dying. Simple words, but often hard to say, and even harder to say to a child. In this episode, Sarah and Dan turn to some experts on saying difficult things to children, Certified Child Life Specialists Kelley Gavel and Nicole MackDiaz. Find out why Child Life is particularly adept at helping kids grapple with the toughest questions, and then stick around for a special guest who tries his...

Turn on, tune in, and drop your preconceptions, because in this episode, Sarah and Dan are your guides on a trip into the realm of psychedelics in pediatric palliative care. We join Dingle Spence, Chris Adrian, and Elisha Waldman to learn about how they came to do this work, how psilocybin is helping some bereaved parents on their journeys of grief, and what the future might hold for psychedelic t...

Interdisciplinary teams are so vital to the practice of palliative care, and in today's episode, the PediPal team explores a new kind of team member: What has four paws, has mastered the art of being present, and is guaranteed to increase the popularity of your palliative care team? A therapy dog! Join Sarah and Dan as they hear two tales of wagging tails who are dedicated members of Peds Pal...

Get psyched because PediPal is back! In this episode, Sarah and Dan interview two psychologists, Amanda Thompson and Rachel Kentor , about creating competencies for pediatric palliative psychology and how we can bring more psychology into the world of pediatric palliative care. You can read their recent paper here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37141582/ And if you're interested in contacti...

If you're working in pediatric palliative care and you haven't heard of Courageous Parents Network, put down this podcast immediately and go make yourself familiar with the amazing resource that is CPN . Sarah and Dan are thrilled to have three courageous parents - Blyth Lord, Amy Graver, and Liz Morris - discuss how their children's stories intersected with palliative care. And if...

Welcome to a special "Best of" PediPal episode! The notion, concept, and implementation of silence is integral to the practice of pediatric palliative care. Perhaps even more important than what we say is what we don't say, and how we don't say it, and when it isn't said. Join Sarah and Dan for an exploration of this truly golden feature of our specialty. "Even a fool...

A social worker, a nurse practitioner, and three physicians walk into a podcast... There's no punchline, just the latest episode of PediPal, where Dan and Sarah interview three of the interprofessional fellows from the Boston Children's interprofessional fellowship program--Jennifer Donovan, Amy Porter, and Thomas Haire--and challenge ourselves to say the word "interprofessional&quo...

How do you talk to a child about illness and death? For a field that deals with these challenging topics every day, we don't always feel comfortable helping our young patients and their families engage with them.  For guidance, Dan and Sarah turn to Elena Lister ( @elenalistermd1 ) and Michael Schwartzman ( @schwartzmanma ), authors of Giving Hope: Conversations with Children About Illness, D...

The holiday season is ending and boy are we stuffed... with educational and entertaining content about one of pediatric palliative care's more misunderstood and controversial topics: overfeeding. Sarah and Dan round out 2022 talking with skeletal dysplasia expert Ricki Carroll ( @RickiCarroll ), hospice guru Glen Komatsu, and the inimitable Julie Hauer about those times when our patients are...

Does practicing pediatric palliation promote positive parenting? Does parenthood put palliative practitioners in a preferable position? Dan and Sarah partner up to ponder these profound puzzles and palaver with Jessica Casas and Daniel Mahoney (@ DanielMahoneyMD ),  and Claire Crawford ( @PalliativClaire ), all from the Pediatric Advanced Care Team at Texas Children's Hospital. (CN: This epis...