As we move into the 21st century an even greater proportion of patients will have chronic illness. They will not necessarily be dying, but they will have disease for which there is no cure. These patients need active well-coordinated total care in order to deal with their multifaceted problems. Medical education must recognize this fact and prepare the doctors to treat these patients.


Palliative medicine is "A concept of medical care that provides for people who are terminally ill". The W.H.O defines Palliative care as " The active, total care of patients at a time when their disease is no, longer responsive to curative treatment and when control of pain, of other symptoms and of social, psychological and spiritual problems is paramount. Palliative care affirms life and regards dying as aanatural process: it neither hastens nor postpones death. It offers a support system to help the patient live as actively as possible until death and help the family cope during the patient's illness and in bereavement. Palliative Care is multi-disciplinary in its approach and encompasses the patient, the family and the community in its scope". In Palliative care, cure is no longer possible, it aims to control symptoms and quality of remaining life by maintaining comfort and function. Palliative care plays an important role in advanced diseases, which include HIV infection, Neurological diseases and chronic end-stage respiratory, gastrointetinal, hepatobiliary or cardiac diseases.

The Palliative care program will NOT replace the primary care physician, it will only provide support services to the specialists and assist them in giving their patients an opportunity to avail of the best curative cure, packaged with support services by the palliative care physician. Palliative care emphasizes the importance of maintaining the patients independence by prescribing oral medication which the patient can dispense himself, rather than ordering parenteral medication which requires medical and nursing intervention. An important component is the care for the geriatric population. As we live longer every day, a need for special care for disease for the aged like Dementia, Osteoporosis, cancers, support etc.

As medicine has become more specialized, physicians have increasingly narrowed their focus. Palliative medicine broadens this focus to include the awareness of suffering, compassion and vulnerability. In doing so, palliative medicine reminds physicians of the art of medicine that must go hand in hand with science in order to obtain an optimal outcome for all patients.