Healing with Humility: Palliative Care for Refugee Communities

Forced displacement has reached unprecedented levels, with over 120 million people uprooted globally and more than 100,000 refugees resettled in the United States in 2024. Refugees arrive with diverse cultural identities, prior professional roles, and experiences of trauma, yet often face systemic barriers, clinician bias, and unmet health needs. This article offers a practical framework grounded in holistic, person-centered values for delivering palliative nursing care to refugee communities. It outlines the complex resettlement journey and highlights how structural inequities, institutional racism, and communication barriers can undermine trust and care delivery. Cultural humility is defined and proposed as a guiding principle. Through real-world examples, communication strategies, and evidence-based insights, the authors demonstrate how care grounded in this principle can promote dignity, build trust, and improve outcomes. Special attention is given to interpreter use, social integration, and the importance of recognizing both cultural differences and individual strengths. When combined with the interdisciplinary, person-centered principles of palliative care-such as symptom management, effective communication, and cultural and spiritual respect-a strengths-based approach can enhance how care is delivered to displaced populations. By understanding the sociocultural and systemic factors that shape the refugee experience, nurses can better meet the complex needs of these patients and their families.