Principles and core competencies of surgical palliative care: an overview

The concept of palliation is as old as surgery itself, perhaps so old that it has been taken for granted rather than conceptualized as a primary framework for surgical care. The experience and success of the hospice movement in the United States and abroad was followed by the extension of its basic concepts to the much larger population of patients with advanced, but not necessarily terminal, illness. This collective experience has provided the necessary background and stimulus for developing a specific set of principles and competencies applicable to surgical palliative care. Surgical palliative care is the treatment of suffering and the promotion of quality of life for seriously or terminally ill patients under surgical care.