#35 When doing nothing is doing everything with Dr Erica Borgstrom

When doing nothing is doing everything. In this episode it is my pleasure to talk with Dr Erica Borgstrom, we explore research that led to the animation film Not Intervening as a Form of Care and the complexities of language in Advance Care Planning.

Key messages from guest

• Eric specialises in EoLC and mortality, understanding how people are dying and how healthcare is structured. 

• Not Intervening as a form of Care is less than three minutes long and is a result of observing palliative care teams over a three year period. It explores the difficulties of framing  the different approach  palliative care takes to interventions

• The notion that palliative care teams “hold space” and “create new spaces” is introduced by Erica and explores different ways that people may think about their treatment.

• We discuss the interpretation of the work treatment and the notion that this was based around a biomedical model, for patients treatment appeared to have high expectations, for example curing a disease.  

• Advance Care Planning conversations were viewed as interventions by teams

• Teaching prompts are available to support the animation Not Intervening as a form of Care, contact Erica for information.

• The film Should Everyone have an end-of-life care plan? can support intergenerational conversations about Advance Care Planning.

Resources

• Watch the film Not intervening as a form of care, the inspiration for this episode

• Watch the film Should everyone have an 'end-of-life' plan?

• Find out more about the Advance Care Planning (ACP ) - Discuss, Decide, Document and Share Advance Care Planning project and film

  • A stop-motion animation following the story of a woman and her dying mother, focusing on everyday forms of care. The script is taken verbatim from an interview conducted as part of an ethnographic research project examining practices of palliative care.Stop motion animation based on Forms of Care project: Forms of Care

  • The project also has a short 3 part podcast describing how we did it and what we found: Forms of care podcast series

Bio

Dr Erica Borgstrom is a Senior Lecturer at The Open University (OU). She specialises in researching end-of-life care from anthropological and sociological perspectives. Her work juxtaposes policy, practice, and people’s everyday experiences. Much of her research has focused on advance care planning. She has won international awards for her research and public engagement, including working with the BBC. Since 2020, she is the lead for Open Thanatology, an interdisciplinary research group at the OU that promotes the study and education of death, dying, loss and grief across the life course. Erica is editor of Mortality – an international, interdisciplinary journal of death studies – and a council member for the Association for the Study of Death and Society.

Find out more about my Bespoke Consultancy

• Service analysis for teams seeking to improve EoLC or prepare for CQC

• End of Life Care Education

• Lasting Power of Attorney Consultancy

• Talks and presentations

If you’d like to find out more about my work contact me.

What one thing will you do?

It would be great to share what resonated with you from this episode, what is the one thing you will do differently? Head to Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn to continue these important conversations.

Thanks to all my guests for working with me to share their knowledge, experience and stories about Advance Care Planning. I hope you enjoyed listening and have insights to take away; I love hearing your reflections on the series and look forward to reviews on Spotify where you can also subscribe to the series.

Clare

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