The Existential Dispatch, Issue No. 25

A Word from the Founding Director

A health system can be technically advanced and still leave people existentially alone. The question is not simply whether a service is available, but whether a person can enter it without surrendering the texture of their life—memory, identity, relationships, fear, and hope. This issue follows that question through moral injury, dignity, caregiving on screen, global palliative care, funding, conferences, and the promises and limits of AI.

Existential Thinker of the Issue

Franz Kafka

“A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.” — Franz Kafka, letter to Oskar Pollak (1904)

Kafka’s image is a useful account of what narrative can do in clinical life: not decorate experience, but break open what has become frozen, unsayable, or privately endured. In psychosocial oncology and end-of-life care, a story, film, or carefully heard life narrative can make room for ambivalence and recognition without forcing suffering into a lesson. The clinician’s task is not to wield the axe for the patient, but to help create a setting in which the patient’s own language can move again. en.wikiquote.org (Wikiquote: Franz Kafka (quotation and letter attribution))

In Academia

A May 2026 article in the International Review of Psychiatry reflects on moral injury in the Canadian debate over medical assistance in dying for mental illness. Its value for existential psychiatry is to name the ethical residue that can remain when clinicians must act amid irreconcilable goods—relief of suffering, protection from harm, professional conscience, and uncertainty—rather than reducing the encounter to a position for or against. pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov (PubMed: Reflections on moral injury and the MAiD for mental illness debate in Canada)

A recent integrative review of dignity in palliative care finds that patients most consistently describe dignity as being treated like a human being. The review locates dignity simultaneously in inner experience, relationships, and structural conditions—an important corrective to approaches that treat dignity as bedside courtesy without examining access, fairness, or institutional design. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov (Palliative Medicine: Patients' dignity in palliative care)

In Film, Literature and Culture

The MacArthur Foundation’s July account of Take Me Home, Liz Sargent’s feature about two sisters negotiating caregiving after a Florida heat wave, points to cinema as a way of making care publicly discussable. The film is scheduled for a national theatrical release in fall 2026, while its short is available through PBS; its central question is not only who provides care, but what future a family is able to imagine together. macfound.org (MacArthur Foundation: Film Sparks Conversation on Care and Accessibility)

In Healthcare (Global)

The International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care’s current overview defines palliative care as active, holistic care for people of every age living with serious health-related suffering, with families and caregivers included in the field of concern. That formulation matters globally: it frames palliative care not as a final add-on, but as a way of organising health systems around personhood, relationships, and relief of suffering across the life course. iahpc.org (International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care: What is Palliative Care?)

Funding and Grant Opportunities

The International Society for the Science of Existential Psychology offers research grants of up to USD 3,000, with applications due November 15. The programme accepts quantitative, qualitative, basic, and applied projects; applicants must be ISSEP members and obtain relevant ethics approval before data collection, so the opportunity may suit a focused pilot or proof-of-concept study. issep.org (ISSEP Research Grants)

The European Union’s Cancer Mission calls for 2026 are listed as open, with a single-stage deadline of September 15, 2026 at 17:00 CEST. The scale is larger than a seed grant and the fit must be tested against the specific call topic and partnership rules, but psychosocial oncology, survivorship, equity, and supportive-care researchers should keep the programme on their horizon. hadea.ec.europa.eu (European Health and Digital Executive Agency: Cancer Mission calls 2026)

Conferences and Events

MIPCC 2026, the 50th-anniversary edition of the McGill International Palliative Care Congress, takes place October 6–9 at Montréal’s Palais des congrès; registration is open. A homecoming to the field’s history can also be a useful occasion to ask what palliative care must become as access, culture, and serious illness change. mipcc2026.ca (MIPCC 2026)

The 9th Public Health Palliative Care International Conference runs October 6–9 in Taipei under the theme “Bridging Culture, Building Compassion: Innovations in Public Health Palliative Care.” Online registration is open until September 28, offering a timely route into the compassionate-communities conversation from an explicitly global perspective. phpci2026.tw (PHPCI 2026)

Startup and Innovation Watch

A systematic review published August 10 in JMIR mHealth and uHealth examined AI-enabled, patient-facing digital health technologies for cancer survivors. Across eight reports from seven studies and 2,867 participants, the evidence suggested possible gains in global health and social functioning, but effects were mixed and the studies could not isolate the contribution of AI itself; the innovation lesson is to demand comparative evidence, not only compelling interfaces. mhealth.jmir.org (JMIR mHealth and uHealth: Patient-Facing AI-Enabled Digital Health Technologies and Quality of Life)

TechCrunch reports that oncology-technology startup Triomics raised USD 22 million in a Series B round to expand tools for clinical-trial matching and appointment preparation. Operational automation may create real capacity, but its existential test is straightforward: does it return time to clinicians and patients for conversation, or simply accelerate the throughput of the system? techcrunch.com (TechCrunch: Triomics raises $22M for oncology-specific AI)

To Close: An Existential Joke

Why did the palliative-care algorithm ask for a second opinion?

Because it had optimised the symptoms, but still wasn’t sure what the patient meant by “enough.”