Palliative Care Consulting Service
What is the Palliative Care Consulting Service?
Pediatric palliative care is designed for children who have a major illness that may limit the length of their life. This includes children who are near the end of life. But we provide much more than end-of-life care.
Our service is helpful for children at any time from diagnosis throughout treatment and it is set up for any family with a child who is seriously ill. The children of many families who use the service survive their illness and no longer need treatment.
Palliative care is intended to help relieve symptoms or other issues that your child has because of major illness or treatment. Everyone on your child's health care team wants to ease your child's journey in any way they can. The Palliative Care Consulting Service has a team to help with this.
The team can work with you on all aspects of your child's illness — physical, mental, emotional, social and spiritual. The team is made up of a doctor, nurse, social worker and chaplain. They consult with your family and your child's main health care team.
What's special about palliative care at Children's?
Our palliative care team's job is to help you and your child get what you need, to work with your child's health care team and to help you make treatment choices that are right for your family. The treatment or support may come from your child's team, from community groups or from other resources that we help you find.
The care-planning meeting
Your contact with the team can take any form that is helpful. It often includes a care-planning meeting. At this meeting, you and the team will talk through your family's unique case, needs and desires. We have a tool that can help you think through the complicated issues that arise when a child is seriously ill. It can help you feel more confident in taking an active role in choices about your child's care.
At the meeting, we talk about health issues, treatment options and many other topics. We talk about quality of life and the ways treatment may affect the things your child loves to do. We also talk about ways to get support in your community.
A guide as you go along
As we talk, a team member takes notes, keeping track of the topics and the choices you make. This way you don't have to recall each detail on your own. At the end, you have the notes to serve as a guide. You can update the notes as often as you need to.
Who needs the Palliative Care Consulting Service?
Any child who has a serious, possibly life-threatening illness, and that child's family may benefit from working with the Palliative Care Consulting Service. To find out more about using this service, please ask your child's health care team.
Physician Leadership
- Ross Hays, MD, Director