I hope you enjoy this selection of articles (and some links to photos and videos) about palliative care, research and related topics. If you make it to the bottom, I’m interested to know what you think of the last link. Please share your thoughts, and any recommendations, in the comments section.

• “Why is so difficult to prognositicate?” asks neurologist Jules Montague, examining cases of poor prognostication throughout history. (Why doctors get it wrong, The Guardian UK)

• Team Palliverse still have a place in our heart for textbooks, and we love it even more when their editors write blog posts. To mark the release of the fifth edition of the Oxford Textbook of Palliative Medicine, the OUP blog is publishing a 3-part series titled “Facing the challenges of palliative care”. Part 1 (Continuity) and Part 2 (Development) are available now. (Oxford University Press)

• Dr Thomas J Lynch makes the argument for patient-centred outcomes research (PCOR) in palliative care, on the ever excellent End of Life Studies blog.

It appears to me that patient-centeredness is indeed the key to outcome measurement in palliative care – more than at any other time in a person’s life it is the “end” where there truly is a “point” to patient-centered research.

• At EAPC Blog, Dr Katherine Pettus shares her thoughts about the recent Public Health Palliative Care Conference. I’m excited by the push for compassionate communities. (Community Resilience in Practice: the 4th International Public Health and Palliative Care Conference.) By the way, For those of us not lucky enough to attend, plenary sessions are available to watch on the conference YouTube channel.

• I remember following US journalist Scott Simon as he tweeted from his dying mother’s bedside in 2013. He recently published a memoir, “Unforgettable: A Son, a Mother, and the Lessons of a Lifetime.” This article briefly examines social media as a “public space for mourning”. (“Unforgettable”: Would you tweet about your mother’s death? Australian Financial Review)

• Developed by the University of Sydney and Alzheimer’s Australia NSW, “CareToons” aim to educate carers of people living with dementia. It appears that they are currently recruiting Australian carers for a study to assess online resources (more information here). (Cartoons offer an important message for carers, Dementia Daily)

• A photographer spent two years in New York dressing up as an “elderly woman”, and documented her experiences in the photo book I Used To Be You.  (Photographer Kyoko Hamada Spent Two Years Pretending To Be An Elderly Woman, And Here’s What She Learned, The Huffington Post)

“No one seemed to care, or even notice me. It’s already very easy to feel ignored in New York City, but as Kikuchiyo-san, I sometimes felt totally invisible” 

• Here’s one idea for writing a thesis: write daily blog posts – even if you don’t publish them. (Writing in the middle, The Thesis Whisperer)

• Enough hand-wringing! Steps to bridge the academic-practitioner divide (Power to Persuade)

• Young resesarchers are missing out in science’s survival of the fittest writes doctoral researcher Dr Louis Wang (Sydney Morning Herald)

• This online calculator of 5-year mortality risk seems popular in my Twitter feed. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I’m too young to use it. (Ubble)

• Three ethical ways to increase organ donation in Australia (The Conversation)

• Finally, a look at the simulated death industry: You Can Pay $4,000 to Feel What It’s Like to Die (Motherboard)