[On total care we have learned during home care hospice study trips in USA--from the experiences of 8 year times visits to America with medical students for practice].
Every year since 1993, as a part of the medical education program of Osaka University, I have taken 10 or more medical students and others to hospices in the USA to study hospice and home care during two weeks. We visit patients and interview them. Palliative care treatment is by definition care treatment designed to relieve pain and distress, pain and symptom management is essentially important. It was very impressive for us to see that in American hospices total care was provided by many kinds of professionals working as a team. Socio-psychological and spiritual care played important roles in total care, which was provided not only to the patients but also to the families, care-takers, and bereaved families after death. We saw home was the best and most natural place for them. I think we have much to learn from these experiences, such as that doctors and nurses are not bosses, but equals among professionals. Also, that home care is not a temporary place in an institution, and that there are many terminal illnesses, besides cancer and AIDS, for which patients require home care.
Minami
Y
Y
Minami Clinic, Home Care Hospice Aozora.
D003191:Comprehensive Health Care; D018575:Home Care Services, Hospital-Based / Q000592:standards*; D017051:Hospice Care; D006801:Humans; D010166:Palliative Care; D010348:Patient Care Team; D013337:Students, Medical; D014481:United States