The complexity of suffering in palliative and end-of-life care
The Plateforme nationale pour la recherche sur la fin de vie and the Réseau québécois de recherche en soins palliatifs et de fin de vie are jointly organizing their sixth international francophone scientific day on palliative and end-of-life care.
At a time when palliative and end-of-life care (PELC) is undergoing profound medical, social and ethical changes, suffering remains a central issue, but one that is still insufficiently explored in all its complexity. Long focused on physical pain, the term suffering is gradually opening up to a broader understanding: psychological, social, moral, spiritual and existential, cultural, anticipated, linked to the trajectories of illness or end-of-life and the lived realities of people, their loved ones and caregivers. Studies and debates around palliative care and assisted dying (medical aid in dying in Quebec) have brought to light the importance and specificity of suffering in hospice palliative care situations.
In this context, research has a fundamental role to play: not only to produce knowledge, but also to question its own methods, its blind spots, and the forms of collaboration it establishes. This scientific day aims to foster disciplinary cross-fertilization, to bring researchers∙ses, practitioners, carers, cared-for people and loved ones into dialogue, and to value sensitive, situated, collaborative approaches.
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