Privilege and Palliative Care

by Denise HessAn American pastor recently visited Australia and encountered a curious practice. At the start of meetings, any kind of meeting not just religious ones, she found it is common practice to begin with what is called an “acknowledgment of country.” According to reconciliation.org.au:An Acknowledgement of Country is an opportunity for anyone to show respect for Traditional Owners and the continuing connection of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to Country. It can be given by both non-Indigenous people and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.And it goes something like this:“I’d like to begin by acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the land on which we meet today. I would also like to pay my respects to Elders past and present. ”I happened to hear this story from that American pastor the same week of the Charlottesville protests and counter protests, and the same week I watched theHBO adaptation ofThe Immortal Life ofHenrietta Lacks. These events made me think again about the role of race in palliative care.In over a decade of working in palliative care, I can say with confidence that I have never met an all-out “racist” palliative care physician, nurse, social worker, or chaplain. However, everyone of us has biases, prejudices, preconceived ideas of how people “should” act and what they “ought” to do, and we carry these biases with us wherever we go. Awareness helps, efforts to counter bias hel p, but...
Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - Category: Palliative Care Tags: culture hess open access psychosocial race Source Type: blogs