There is a lot of misinformation out there about palliative care and hospice. I just read an interesting blog post. In it, Dr. Cynthia X. Pan describes how she entered “palliative care” in Google Translate and got Chinese characters back. She then translated those characters back into English, and it came back: “do nothing care.”

Wait… there’s more. She did the same thing with “hospice” and it came back as “last minute care.”

This not just a problem with Google Translate or the Chinese language. A lot of people think this about these very appropriate and helpful medical care approaches. I remember back in my nursing home chaplain days when I was just getting my start talking to patients and families about “No CPR” orders I learned an early lesson.

Families and patients hear, “No Care” when you say “No CPR.” They might say, “You mean when mom is dying you are going to just do NOTHING!”

We do lots for dying patients

So, I started leading the conversation with “We do lots for dying patients. We keep them clean and dry. If they are having a hard time breathing, we clear their airway and give them oxygen. We give them pain medications. You can be here to comfort your mom, even get up in bed with her. We just are not going to beat on her chest when her heart stops. That is what the ‘No CPR’ order is about.”

But like Google translator many people hear, “palliative care” and think “do nothing care.” Palliative care is very aggressive keeping a patient comfortable and meeting social and spiritual needs.

Likewise, so many people think hospice is for the last day or two of life, even though Medicare offers to cover a patient for six months (or more). Late referrals are a real problem in hospice. We do our best work if we have, at least, weeks if not months to care for a patient. More time means better pain control, getting the most appropriate equipment into the home, more time for social and spiritual support.

So help me get the word out there. Palliative care is LOTS of care and hospice care is MONTHS of care.

Update: Google Translate seems to have fixed both translations. Progress!