Every clinician delivering palliative care in a community setting understands the uncertainties and inherent limitations.  A patient clearly in their last months. Specialist palliative care may be limited, or available only by phone. Pharmacy access may be patchy. Practical in-home supports could be scarce. Everyone understands what is needed, but the roles, funding and responsibility for coordinating care remain unclear. Everybody does their best. Nobody is quite sure whose job it was. 

These challenges sit at the intersection of ANZSPM’s Rural and Remote Palliative Medicine SIG and General Practice SIG.  

The upcoming joint workshop, Sharing Complexity, is deliberately not a lecture. It is designed to accelerate a decade-long conversation forward, catalysed by increased awareness of current demands and shortcomings - as highlighted in recent statewide reports from Victoria and South Australia, for example.  

Three short, challenging clinical cases from clinicians providing palliative care in the community provides the springboard for a facilitated panel and interactive floor discussion involving representatives from GP colleges, RACP, primary health networks and Aotearoa New Zealand.