About this item
Part reportage, part rallying cry for compassion to embrace the human side of illness and the healing art of care, Stay, Breathe with Me, is an appeal to revive medicine's forgotten mandate to ease suffering. When suffering invades body, mind, and soul, what joy there is to be heard and understood. And when the gentle art of caring, known as medical palliation, provides whole person care to relieve pain and anguish, hope can survive. This ancient practice of palliation views the patient both as a participating partner in the art of care and an injured storyteller whose wisdom can guide healing hands. Informed by the voices of the seriously ill, their families, and the lifelong experience of a palliative care nurse and medical social worker, Stay, Breathe with Me, illuminates the importance of bringing heart and compassion back into health care.
About the Author
Helen Allison, R.N., B.A., B.S.W., M.S.W.
Scottish highlander by birth, Canadian by home, Helen was born with healing hands and a caregiving heart. During her long career as a palliative nurse and medical social worker, Helen pursued a person-centered approach to champion the ill and their families. As senior author, Helen contributed to Social Work Services as a Component of Palliative Care with Terminal Cancer Patients (Haworth Press) . Now, with the help of her daughter, Irene Allison, Helen shares her life's learning that to ease suffering, the art of compassionate care must embody patient wisdom.
