Health Progress is especially proud of this issue's special section
on palliative care. Our guest editor is Laurence J. O'Connell, PhD, STD,
president and CEO of the Park Ridge Foundation for the Study of Health, Faith
and Ethics, and chief ethics officer, Advocate Health Care, both of which are
based in Chicago. A longtime CHA friend, Dr. O'Connell is a past member
of this journal's Editorial Advisory Committee.
In putting our special section together, Dr. O'Connell has had help from
Ira Byock, MD, a distinguished figure in the development of end-of-life care
in the United States. A cofounder of the Life's End Institute: Missoula
Demonstration Project, Missoula, MT, Dr. Byock is currently director of palliative
medicine, Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, NH. He is also program
director of Promoting Excellence in End-of-Life Care, a national program sponsored
by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. In "The Ethics of Loving Care,"
he discusses the importance of palliative care.
Readers will find Promoting Excellence described in "Aligning Values with
Practice" by Dr. Byock and Jeanne S. Twohig, the program's
deputy director. Dr. Byock is also a coauthor, with Kaye Norris, PhD; Gretchen
Strohmaier, MDiv; and Charles Asp, PhD, of "Spiritual Care at the End of
Life."
Christina Puchalski, MD, another leader in palliative care, is the author of
"Listening to Stories of Joy and Pain." In "Giving Patients
a 'Good Death,'" Nancy Mulvihill, vice president, corporate
communications, Covenant Health Systems, Lexington, MA, describes end-of-life
care at St. Joseph's Hospital, Nashua, NH.
Copyright © 2004 by the Catholic Health Association of the United States
For reprint permission, contact Betty Crosby or call (314) 253-3477.