PALLIATIVE care has been an important part of my life ever since I was a medical student shadowing a GP who took me on his house calls each day.
Often there were poignant visits to patients who were in the last days of their lives, where my mentor would help to support carers, liaise with district nurses, oversee medication and, most importantly of all, give comfort.
Most of the time they were patients he had known for many years, and he was their expert medical friend, as well as a vital source of support.
Obviously, death does not respect office hours and my mentor was available day and night for any crisis of pain management, or the eventual demise of the patient, which so often seemed to be in the darkest hour before dawn.
Little did I realise that palliative care would become such a large part of my life, as both the medical director of a hospice and a GP in a practice devoted to enabling patients to die at home, if it is their wish or the wish of their loved ones.
Today, many terminally ill patients still express a desire to spend their last days surrounded by their loved ones at home, yet many are being denied this wish, with surveys by Macmillan Cancer Support showing that almost three-quarters of cancer patients who died in hospital had wanted to be in their own homes.
Local hospices provide vital home support, but heavy workloads and, I suspect, lack of training and experience in this area mean GPs are less involved than they were in the past.
Making formal palliative care training a mandatory part of the education of future family doctors would help ensure more people get the sort of peaceful, dignified death they deserve.
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