Tell Us More: The Palliative Care Oral History Project

As palliative specialists, we have a unique appreciation for the power of oral tradition—the stories of healing and suffering, challenge and accomplishment, and meaning and purpose that can be honored between us in safe and inclusive spaces. To this end, we take great pride in launching a new Journal of Palliative Medicine (JPM) podcast series, “Tell Us More: The Palliative Care Oral History Project.” Each month, we will sit down with a pivotal leader from Hospice and Palliative Care (HAPC) and do what our field does best—ask questions, listen, and reflect. We want to hear their stories in their own words: How did they come to hospice and palliative care? What were the early years like? What roadblocks did they face and how did they overcome them?

In some ways, we know the outlines of our field’s history. Fifty years ago, Canadian urologist Dr. Balfour Mount first coined the term “palliative care.” Dr. Mount built on the pioneering early hospice work by Dame Cicely Saunders, Florence Wald, and others. In 1990, the World Health Organization critically recognized palliative care as a unique specialty. In 2004, the National Coalition for Hospice and Palliative Care published the first edition of the National Consensus Guidelines for Palliative Care, formalizing the principles and best practices for the field. A decade later, the World Health Assembly passed resolution WHA67.19, “Strengthening of palliative care as a component of comprehensive care throughout the life course,” naming palliative care as a core component of comprehensive health care. Behind many of these milestones are the stories of great leaders that need telling.

HAPC brings together professionals across the spectrum of caring—advanced practice providers, chaplains, nurses, pharmacists, physicians, psychologists, and social workers, among others. We continue to create and reinforce our evidence base, demonstrating the value of specialized serious illness care and expertise in symptom management, psychosocial support, and assistance with decision making across the disease continuum from diagnosis through death and bereavement. Although young as a discipline, HAPC has made itself indispensable to modern medicine.

The transition from burgeoning enterprise to standard of care did not happen on its own, though. For decades, pioneering individuals across HAPC’s professions built the field from the ground up. And yet we know too little about the personal narratives of these esteemed leaders and the everyday ups and downs that nudged the field forward. From providing counter-cultural, whole-person, and family care at the bedside, to engaging in groundbreaking research, to breaking down funding barriers, to creating seats at the C-suite table, the earliest leaders in HAPC developed an interprofessional discipline through their belief that health care could better meet the needs of the patients and families who needed it most. It’s an understatement to say we owe this generation our deepest gratitude. In addition to celebrating these leaders, with the “Tell Us More” podcast we will have an unprecedented opportunity—to listen and learn from them in an intimate, sit-down setting.

Podcast episodes will release monthly. They will be uploaded to JPM’s website and be available for download on major platforms. Each podcast will also have an accompanying online article, with a brief introduction to the guest’s work and a transcript of the interview. Our debut episode is planned for summer 2025—stay tuned!