Palliative Care Australia endorses and sells these high-quality resources.  To order any of these materials please print and fill out the attached order form.  Your financial details will remain confidential and you will be provided with a tax invoice upon receipt of your order. 

Medicine and care of the dying 
There is a growing conflict in medicine between the research imperative, with its implicit goal of overcoming death itself, and the re-emergent clinical imperative to treat death as a part of life, and to make the process of dying as tolerable as possible. Central to this conflict is the rise of scientific medicine and the decline of religious and associated moral discourses. Many of the Anglo Saxon countries are also marked by a moral and religious pluralism which breeds controversy over bioethical issues such as euthanasia.

It seems that modern medicine has put the cure of bodies before the care of persons. Some scholars attribute this to a metaphysical heritage of dualism and reductionism. This heritage has become problematic in the modern age when waning belief in a divine order leaves the individual self as the bearer of meaning. At the same time, knowledge about nature and society has been increasing at such an accelerated pace, it has become even more difficult to develop a unified secular worldview. When the dying self contemplates its own disintegration in this context, the search for meaning may rest heavy indeed.

Chapters one and two address these larger issues. Chapter three focuses on medicine's approach to cancer as a prime example of the strengths and weaknesses of the research imperative. Chapter four looks at the diffusion of the theory and practice of palliative care throughout the Anglo Saxon world. The fifth chapter discusses the development of effective pain control, essential to palliative care and one of modern medicine's unsung triumphs. The sixth chapter addresses the changing meaning of euthanasia in Western history in the past century, as it transitioned from a philosophical position to a widely-debated policy proposal.

This book is for palliative care practitioners, and all health care professionals with an interest in end-of-life care. It is also for students in palliative care and the history of medicine, and for anyone interested in the history of this intriguing field.

Order "Medicine and care of the dying: A modern history"

Teaching resources for competency units 
Teaching resources for CHCPA01A deliver care services using a palliative approach and CHCPA02A Plan for and provide care services using a palliative approach are now available for order. 

These nationally endorsed resources have been developed by Palliative Care Australia and are compatiblie with the assessment tools produced by thte Community Services Health and Industry Skills Council.  They are suitable for trainers of students in aged care, home and community care and disability work as well as staff in residential aged care facilities.

The teaching resources contain all the information that a trainer will need to deliver a competency unit.

This includes:

• a comprehensive trainer's manual
• PowerPoint presentatons with notes
• Learning activities, assessment tasks and learners' resoures that can be printed and photocopied for students
• a copy of the Guidelines for a palliative approach in residential aged care
• a copy of the DVD Suiting the needs

These resources are available for AUD $247.50 (in GST) each, plus postage and handling.

Sample pages

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