Emergencies in Supportive and Palliative Care

Fully revised according to up-to-date clinical guidance, this second edition provides a practical, accessible guide to emergency situations encountered in the practice of supportive and palliative care. Designed for rapid use, it addresses the immediate clinical challenges while more definitive measures are being put in place.

Structured around frequently encountered symptoms, the book is split into two sections. The first section explores how patients with life-limiting illnesses such as cancer, AIDS, and end-stage organ failure normally present, and looks at the reversibility of their condition. The second section provides a detailed approach to specific clinical conditions, and is for use once the clinical diagnosis has been reached on the basis of the presenting symptoms. An improved order to the table of contents for this edition matches clinical practice.

Guiding the decision-making process is an understanding of where the patient is on their disease trajectory. The book uses three categories (terminal, deteriorating, and stable), which consider how the patient’s needs are changing as their disease progresses. A brand new chapter ’Care at the end of life’ outlines good clinical care for the last hours days of life when the diagnosis of dying has been actively made.

The book provides trainees in palliative medicine, nurses, family doctors, and other allied health professionals with a pocket guide to the emergency care of people requiring supportive and palliative care, and it complements and cross-refers to the Oxford Handbook of Palliative Care.

David Currow, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Sustainable Futures); Matthew Flinders Distinguished Professor, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia; Flinders University, Adelaide, Adelaide, Katherine Clark, Senior Staff Specialist; Area Director of Palliative Services; Conjoint Professor; Senior Clinical Advisor, Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney, Austrlia; Northern Sydney Local Health District, Sydney, Australia; University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia; Palliative Care Ministry of Health, Sydney, Australia, Paul Kleinig, Senior Staff Specialist; General Physician; Clinical Lecturer, Southern Adelaide Palliative Services, Adelaide, Australia; Southern Adelaide Local Health Network, Adelaide, Australia; Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia

Professor David Currow is a physician and the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Sustainable Futures) at the University of Wollongong. He is a widely published researcher focussing on generating a stronger evidence base for symptom control, understanding the population prevalence of key symptoms and their impacts, and health services research.

Katherine Clark (MBBS MMed PhD FRACP FAChPM) is a palliative medicine specialist and the current clinical director of supportive and palliative care in Northern Sydney Local Health District (NSW, Australia). Most recently, she has been appointed as senior clinical advisor in palliative care to the NSW Ministry of Health.

Paul Kleinig is a palliative care physician and general physician in Adelaide, South Australia. His professional passion is the stewardship and mentorship of students and young health professionals towards clinical excellence through role-modelling, teaching, and professional assessment.