Palliative care courses

Thank you to Dr Langlois for the very relevant article in the August issue of Canadian Family Physician.¹ As a semiretired family physician now doing part-time counseling in advance care planning and end-of-life issues, I share many of the emotions you expressed about palliative sedation and the privilege we have in bearing witness to the journey our patients are on. I will pass on very valuable advice I received from a palliative care mentor before I undertook this counseling role: if possible, take the “Being With Dying” and the recently added “Being With Suffering” courses at Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, NM. My experience with Upaya, its founder Roshi Joan Halifax, and the other teachers, including Frank Ostaseski, have been life altering. They use a mindfulness approach and stress self-care as much as patient care. Attending in person when it reopens would be ideal, but there are webinars and sessions that can be mind expanding and incredibly useful in the meantime.²

I hope you are able to reap the benefits as I have.