How Is Hope Reimagined at the End of Life?

While working as a women's health nurse practitioner (NP) in the obstetric and gynecologic setting for 10 years, I found life circumstances steering my family and I to relocate. An opportunity arose for me to change gears and enter the world of women's health oncology. After seven months in my new role as a gynecologic oncology NP, I found myself sitting in a family meeting. The meeting involved myself, representing my clinical colleagues, along with team members from palliative care and social work. The patient was in her 80s with a diagnosis of recurrent endometrial cancer. Her health history included multiple previous surgeries and chemotherapy, and, unfortunately, she was no longer a safe candidate for treatment. She had comorbidities and chronic sequalae from past treatments.