Send us a text "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 wi…

Send us a text 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 …

Send us a text 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…

Send us a text 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…

Send us a text 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.…

Send us a text 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 pediatri…

Send us a text 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.By PediPal

Send us a text 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.By PediPal

Send us a text 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 qu…

Send us a text 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 jo…

Send us a text 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 …

Send us a text 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…

Send us a text 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 …

Send us a text 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 fea…

Send us a text 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 challeng…

Send us a text 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 Gi…

Send us a text 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 inimi…

Send us a text 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…

Send us a text 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

Send us a text 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 …

Send us a text 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.

Send us a text 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 p…

Send us a text 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

Send us a text 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 th…

Send us a text 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.…

Send us a text 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…

Send us a text 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.

Send us a text 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…

Send us a text "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 physicia…

Send us a text 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 lo…

Send us a text 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 ol…

Send us a text 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, t…

Send us a text 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…

Send us a text 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 ch…

Send us a text 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 (@pedswor…

Send us a text 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 h…

Send us a text 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 Agrawa…

Send us a text 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 Rube…

Send us a text 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