Improving Palliative Care Together

Our mission

Our mission is to improve care for all people with serious illness and their families. We seek to do this through research focused on multicultural and multilingual communities, partnering with them to better understand their experiences and create innovative solutions that address their needs.

Current Research

Our research focuses on improving care for people from diverse cultural and language backgrounds through studies like ImPaCT-Dementia and ImPaCT-Cancer. We partner with different communities to learn about their experiences and develop approaches to care that honor their values and priorities. These groups are a starting point, and we hope to expand our work to include more communities in the future.

ImPaCT Cancer

ImPaCT Cancer focuses on patients with cancer and their families who have a primary language of Somali, Spanish, or Vietnamese.

ImPaCT Dementia

ImPaCT Dementia focuses on older adults with dementia or memory problems and their families who have a primary language of Chinese (Mandarin/Cantonese), Spanish, or Vietnamese.

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Lived Experiences: The Heart of Our Research

“Palliative care focuses on the person, not just the disease, honoring their unique cultural characteristics. We were honest and transparent with this patient about her cancer and future, ensuring she understood. I’m proud to provide this kind of compassionate care.”

“I think a lot of palliative care that I’ve seen, whether there’s conflict or not, they always acknowledge that it’s a difficult situation for everybody and that they’re sorry that this is happening and that they’re always reachable. Just wanting to make it known that they’re there for the patient, but they’re also there to support the family with whatever they might need. And here I think I’ve had the same experience.”

“And also always remember, look at the humanity part, look at this person prior of the cancer who they were. And remember because people are refugee and immigrant, they had a life. They were somebody. They were like lawyers, financial, business owners and all of that. Don’t think about like, ‘oh this is an immigrant.’ That you have to also pay attention. And I would say, ‘just ask in one minute or maybe tell me about you a little bit, what you used to do.’ People love to share that. And when that human connection happens, the rest is easy.”

Dr. Rashmi K Sharma

Meet the Team 🔗

Support Our Mission: Help Advance Palliative Care Research for Diverse Communities

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