September 9, 2023
Bringing Buddhism to the Doctor’s Office
Serious illness and dying are some of the hardest experiences we can go through as human beings, yet they are an inevitable part of life. In many cases, having a supportive and caring palliative care provider is essential.
One such provider is changing the approach to patient care, training clinicians to communicate more openly and effectively about serious illness. Anthony Back, co-director of the University of Washington Center for Excellence in Palliative Care, is also a Buddhist practitioner who has been leading retreats on being with dying at the Upaya Zen Center with Roshi Joan Halifax. When it comes to palliative care, Back’s goal is to improve the quality of compassionate care for patients and to provide support to physicians for working with the difficult emotions that come with this work by offering tools to avoid burnout and moral injury.
“There’s a technical aspect to my care, the care that I provide, but then there is also this other more personal aspect, which is this person-to-person aspect, which I think of as more than even just emotional care. It is the care of being present. It’s the care of witnessing. It is the care of sharing space with another human being.”
Back joined the latest episode of Life As It Is to discuss this work, his Buddhist practice, and his current study on psilocybin-assisted therapy for burnout. Listen to the full episode here. | 
No comments:
Post a Comment