PediPal Podcasts

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 …

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: Conv…

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 Hau…

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 T…

In our final international episode, Sarah and Dan speak with Doctora Rut Kiman (@KimanRut) about pediatric palliative care in Argentina and throughout Latin America.By PediPal

Curative therapy and hospice... at the same time?! Since the Affordable Care Act, pediatric patients don't have to give up one to benefit from the other. But does this model really work, and does it make sense for the realities of pediatric palliative care and hospice as in 2022? To figure it all out, Sarah and Dan have a concurrent conversation wi…

Where in the world is PediPal? South Africa! Sarah and Dan interview Julia Ambler (@AmblerJulia), the pediatric palliative care physician for Umduduzi Hospice Care for Children (https://umduduzi.co.za/) in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal.

How do medical marijuana and pediatric palliative care fit together? In this episode, Sarah and Dan seek some clarity about cannabis, interviewing two experts on the topic, Dr. Bonni Goldstein and Dr. Dustin Sulak. Listen to learn more about the endocannabinoid system and the impact that this much-maligned medicine has on it and on patients, often …

PediPal International steams onward, and we now find ourselves in Tokyo, Japan. In this episode, Sarah and Dan interview Nobuyuki Yotani 余谷 暢之, Head of the Department of Palliative Medicine at the National Center for Child Health and Development.By PediPal

Welcome to Pediatrics. The first rule is, "Children are not just Little Adults." The second rule is also, "Children are not just Little Adults." But how does this trope fit into Pediatric Palliative Care? And is it possible that, instead, Adults are actually just Big Children?? In this episode, Sarah and Dan explore this idea with three different g…

Our world tour continues with this next stop in Wellington, New Zealand. Dan and Sarah interview paediatric palliative care specialist Amanda Evans (@amaevans), who teaches them a bit of New Zealand history, some Maori concepts of health and illness, and a lesson on just how cool Jacinda Ardern really is.…

As Sarah and Dan continue their international tour in 2022, they find themselves surprisingly close to home in Phoenix, Arizona... by way of England, and by way of an inspiring story of community, advocacy, and ingenuity. In this Episode your PediPal crew hears the story of the Cottor family and the founding of Ryan House, as well as the hopes for …

PediPal is going international! In this inaugural episode of our new series, Dan and Sarah interview Dr. Spandana Rayala (@SpandanaRayala), a pediatric palliative care physician in Hyderabad, India.

Webster's dictionary defines "liminality" as... Just kidding. But not really. In this episode, Dan and Sarah put on novice anthropologist hats and start to explore the role that ritual plays in Pediatric Palliative Care: in bereavement, in the day to day flow of the team, and in things as mundane as stapling your morning list. Social worker Caitlin…

"So, what kind of work do you do?" When you're in pediatric palliative care, what answer do you give? And how do you respond to the inevitable follow-ups? "That's so sad," "You must be so special," "I could never do that..." We've all been there. So in this final episode of 2021, Dan and Sarah interview three peds palliative physicians—Allison Silv…

Music therapy, art therapy, child life, and pediatric palliative care resonate with each other in a lot of important ways. In this episode, Dan and Sarah chat with.... Dan and Sarah?! Yep, that's music therapist Dan Stafford and art therapist and child life specialist Sarah Yazdian Rubin. The Dans and Sarahs discuss creativity and loss, the roles e…

If there's something long-acting that targets multiple receptors and has a variable equianalgesic dose ratio in your neighborhood, who you gonna call? Eduardo Bruera (@edubru) and Kevin Madden (@madden_kevin), of MD Anderson Cancer Center! Get ready for chills and thrills as they take Sarah and Dan on a haunted tour of that spooky old opioid, metha…

Was starting this podcast academic suicide for Sarah and Dan? That remains to be seen, but interviewing Joanne Wolfe (@WolfePPC) and Chris Feudtner was definitely a good choice! In this episode, hear two of the founding figures of pediatric palliative care in the USA discuss the rocky roads they traveled, individually and together, to establish the…

Do you like my hat? No? How about this one? In this episode, Sarah and Dan talk with three physicians who each wear two hats: palliative care and another specialty. Wynne Morrison (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia) dons and doffs a PICU chapeau, Natasha Henner (Lurie Children's Hospital) wears a NICU cap, and Elisabeth Dellon (UNC Children's Hos…

Hola, somos el equipo de cuidados paliativos! نحن مجموعة من الأطباء والممرضات والأخصائيين الاجتماعيين والقساوسة ، هنا لتقديم ... ...wait, how do you say "extra layer of support" in Arabic? And can I scan this POLST form into Google Translate? Welcome to Episode 5, in which Sarah and Dan interview two medical interpreters about the challenges and jo…

How lovely it would be if everyone were as thoughtful and palliative-minded as we are! Palliative care providers are meticulous about language when talking to patients and families, but are we as thoughtful about the words we use to talk about our patients and families? In Episode 4, Sarah and Dan talk to Gitanjli Arora, MD (@pedsworld), and Rachel…

As Pediatric Palliative Care grows, new programs are started and restarted, often by recent fellowship graduates. This leaves the landscape of PPC dotted with islands of solo providers or tiny teams in various stages of growing pains. In this third episode of Pedipal, Sarah and Dan indulge their pandemic-thwarted wanderlust, island hopping among th…

Ketamine: a no-drama drug? Hard to believe when so many clinicians seem scared to use it, but maybe we've all been thinking about this NMDA antagonist the wrong way. In this episode of Pedipal, Sarah and Dan pour themselves a heaping bowl of Special K as they sit down with two ketamine aficionados, Dr. Stephen Long and Dr. Anu Agrawal, from UCSF Be…

How do we name our pediatric palliative care teams? Is the word "palliative" just a liability? Why does Justin Baker regularly cosplay as a marsupial? In this inaugural episode of Pedipal, Dan and Sarah interview colleagues from around the US about the names of their teams and how they introduce themselves to families: Dr. Jared Rubenstein (Texas C…

The first episode of @PediPal is coming! So listen to this trailer as a starting dose before titrating up to full strength. If the side effects are tolerable, then watch this space for the official release VERY soon... Theme music: "Sneaky Adventure," by Kevin MacLeod (2009)By PediPal