Palliative Care Services
The specially trained pediatric palliative care team at Monroe Carell works to enhance your child's physical, emotional, social and spiritual well-being. We focus on infants, children and young adults diagnosed with serious illnesses and provide compassionate care and support for your entire family.
Pediatric palliative care can begin at diagnosis and continues throughout treatment, to allow your child to live the best life possible with a medical condition. We provide our services for children with both curable and incurable illnesses. These include genetic diseases, heart and lung diseases, neuromuscular disorders, cancer and complications of prematurity. Pediatric palliative care also provides support for your family as you discuss your goals, hopes, fears and wishes.
We work closely with your child's other medical team members including physicians, nurses, social workers, chaplains and child life specialists.
We meet with your family for the first time in the hospital or in any clinic at Vanderbilt. Once our team is involved, we continue to support your child and family during hospitalizations, at regularly scheduled clinic appointments and at home if desired.
The pediatric palliative care team
- Communicates regularly with children, families, and medical teams
- Helps support families with medical decision-making
- Assists with acute and chronic pain and symptom management
- Honors family beliefs, values and preferences
- Provides emotional support for the whole family
- Arranges hospice and end-of-life care when needed
