[Nursing in palliative medicine - palliative care, a specialized form of nursing?]

Nursing in palliative medicine requires new pathways to secure an appropriate care which focuses on the patients quality of life. Besides accepting the incurability of the life threatening illness competence in pain therapy, symptom control and spiritual and ethical issues are necessary. Flexibility and creativity within the nursing practice are important to ensure that the patients requirements are met in an appropriate way. The patterns of care have to be reflected and adjusted. Beyond this the integration of the next of kin is a characteristic of palliative care. That leads to the idea that accompanying dying cancer patients calls for more than only the inner readiness to get involved with patients in their last period of life, far more than just a natural and personal talent. Both are important prerequisites, but they have to be broadened by a specific competence. In Great Britain it is determined that it is the right of every person with a life threatening illness to receive appropriate palliative care and that every health care professional has to be able to practise the palliative care approach. In Germany we have to strive for a development equivalent to Great Britain.