Palliative Care (still) needs better PR and a new spokesperson
This article is dedicated to a former patient of mine. He described himself in our initial meeting as “acerbic, sardonic, sarcastic and irreverent. Can you handle that?” I think he would have liked this article. But if you can’t handle it, maybe stop here.
In 2022, I had the pleasure of attending HPCO’s annual education conference in Richmond Hill. I stayed at the Sheraton Parkway hotel which provide clean, spacious rooms at affordable prices and plenty of space to hold a conference of this size.
I will Dr. Sandy Buchman’s keynote lecture in another article but I thought it would only be fair to cover the others as well.
One was a talk by Drs. Naheed Dosani and Nadine Persaud. I won’t bother with an introduction because if you don’t know they are by now, you probably do live under a rock or in a trashcan on Sesame Street.
Their talk was about one of the highlights of the conference, I even took notes:
· note to self: racism is bad, just don’t do it
· don’t be a douche waffle
· equal is not equitable
· being homeless isn’t helpful
· sometimes old people die too
Despite the trigger warning, there was one comment in particular that triggered me.
During his presentation, Dr. Dosani said that “Palliative care has a PR problem.”
Well, duh.
I wrote about this in Healthy Debate back in 2020, updated here in 2023.
It was a cheeky and sarcastic piece (like this one) but the core message was simple: we cannot continue the same tactics and expect different results.
One of those tactics was to use the power of social media to reach out Canada’s own Ryan Reynolds. Ryan had just taken up the cause for Ottawa Public Health to help with COVID and his role as Marvel’s Deadpool seemed like a sure thing. Who else to talk about end of life care than someone who can’t die, amiright? But unlike his Aviation gin, Reynolds’ silence left a bad taste in my mouth.
So, what does this have to do with palliative care in Canada?
The time has come to pick a new spokesperson for palliative care in Canada. We need to look beyond funny man Ryan Reynolds and find someone who can get the message across to the thousands of Canadians who could benefit from a palliative approach to care and those who care for them.
The obvious place to start is Hugh Jackman. Jackman is a more attractive and funnier version of Reynolds. His coffee, Laughing Man Coffee, is a fine brew and frankly, everyone loves Australians. His run as Wolverine will probably never be bested and his demise in Logan stands as one of cinema’s crowning achievements. The feud between Jackman and Reynolds was chronicled by People magazine and it is finally time to declare The Greatest Showman the undisputed champ. Here’s a guy who knew how to die with style and panache.
Of course Deadpool 3 is going to somehow explain this away when Reynolds and Jackman team up.
Next, I would consider Jackman’s X-Men co-star Patrick Stewart, who played Professor Charles Xavier in Sony’s X-Men movie series (before the Mouse House bought them anyways.) Patrick Stewart is well known and recognizable for many roles including Jean Luc Picard from Star Trek TNG as well as his new “Picard” series. But his role as a demented Charles Xavier in Logan would serve as a great reminder that palliative care is not just for cancer diagnoses but non-malignant ones as well, such as dementia, ALS and Parkinson’s disease.
Of course, palliative care is still very appropriate for malignant diagnoses and who better than Natalie Portman, who plays Jane Foster in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) also known as the Mighty Thor. Diagnosed with cancer, Jane comes to inherit the power of Thor however each and ever single time she becomes the Mighty Thor, it reverses her chemotherapy treatments and her disease progresses. This creates a terrible choice for Jane each time she transforms into the Mighty Thor. Now, I checked with my oncology colleagues and none of them are aware of this phenomenon but I trust Marvel comics more than textbooks and journals.
At least now she’ll have time in Valhalla to nail down that catch phrase.
Who better than Jeffrey’s Wright’s “The Watcher” to champion comfort care. As a being who sees all and vows not to interfere, The Watcher was finally compelled to act in the Disney+ series “What If…” This would be a great analogy for palliative care and the need to have difficult goals of care discussions rather than continuing the status quo and false hope.
Best known for his role as Jonah Hex, Josh Brolin also had a small role in the MCU as Thanos. With a snap of his fingers, he was able to blip 50% of the population out of existence. Brolin’s Mad Titan would help to remind us that end of life care is not that simple and that nearly 100% of all patients would benefit from a palliative approach to their care. Thanos’s obsession with Death would also serve to remind us that we all die eventually. Yes, all of us. Even you. And you. And you.
Maybe we should look to Chadwick Boseman, who played Marvel’s Black Panther. Boseman epitomized “living while dying.” He was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer in 2016, which progressed to stage IV in 2020. Boseman continued to act, despite his diagnosis, choosing to keep his illness private. During this time he starred in numerous films including films Captain America: Civil War, the aforementioned Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame. Wakanda Forever, indeed.
Perhaps we should consider someone Canadian. I can think of no one better than the Tragically Hip’s Gordon Downie. The Hip literally were the soundtrack to my life from the release of Road Apples onward, up to and including Saskadelphia. Despite a diagnosis of glioblastoma, Gordon and the Hip completed one last cross-country tour in 2017, culminating in an event in Kingston we shall soon never forget. I attended the Hip’s last concert in Toronto on August 14, 2017, sitting in the lonely end of the rink at ScotiaBank Place one last time. That Night in Toronto is one I will never forget. I would go on to write my Royal College exam two years later in September 2019. I studied weekly at our local Starbuck’s drinking nothing but Cold Brews and listening to nothing but the Hip on shuffle. God bless you Gord.
What about Terry Fox? A man whose legacy is as Canadian as the beaver, maple syrup and apologies. Fox’s Marathon of Hope has raised millions for cancer research. If the Bank of Canada has one job, it is to put this man on the 5-dollar bill as soon as humanly possible (and deal with inflation maybe?)
Who would you pick as a spokesperson for promoting palliative care in Canada?
Please include your answers in the comments box below.
As for Mr. Reynolds, he seems too busy with his Jolly Rancher telephones and soccer team.
But I can find it in my heart to forgive him and will turn the other cheek.
But one day when he is standing on the shores of the River Styx, when the boatman Charon comes to collect his fare and provide passage into the afterlife, there will be but one question Reynolds will have to answer:
“Bru, Green Lantern?!”