The Existential Dispatch, Issue No. 47

A Word from the Founding Director

This issue begins with a conversation many clinicians still hesitate to start. A Spanish trial suggests that inviting people in palliative care to speak about death does not deepen their distress, and caregivers in Iran describe their own existential burden in their own words. Taken together, these pieces ask less whether we should speak about finitude than how we can make room to listen when it arrives.

Existential Thinker of the Issue

Seneca

“It is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it.” — Seneca, On the Shortness of Life, 1, trans. John W. Basore (dn760105.eu.archive.org)

Seneca reframes finitude as a question of attention rather than duration. In serious illness, where time is often counted in prognoses, his line invites a different clinical question: not only how much time remains, but what the person wants that time to hold, and how care can protect it from being consumed by what matters least to them.

In Academia

Talking about death in palliative care does not appear to cause harm. The HABLAR trial of the UIC Barcelona WeCare Chair, funded by Spain’s Carlos III Health Institute, compares a structured invitation to discuss thoughts about death (GO-TaD) with usual care in six palliative-care units, aiming for 168 people with advanced cancer. Preliminary results reported on October 9 found no greater distress or hopelessness, and no worse rating of the clinical relationship; the trial is due to finish in December, so final results are still to come. europapress.es

Psycho-existential distress among caregivers. A phenomenological study in the Iranian Journal of Ageing (October 10) explores the lived experience of family caregivers of older adults with advanced cancer in palliative care, a reminder that existential suffering also falls on those who accompany. salmandj.uswr.ac.ir

In Film, Literature and Culture

I Won’t Remain Alone. Published by Aeon on October 7, Yaser Talebi’s 15-minute documentary follows an elderly couple in northern Iran after their son is declared brain dead, as they grieve and decide whether to authorise organ donation. It is a quiet study of how a family makes meaning of a decision no one should have to make. aeon.co

In Healthcare (Global)

Workplace violence prevention moves into law in New York. A KevinMD essay (October 8) notes that New York’s law took effect on September 18, giving covered hospitals twelve months to establish prevention programs, with annual safety assessments from January 1, 2027, and argues for a national standard. Legislation sets the floor; the culture of mutual respect that makes it work still has to be built ward by ward. kevinmd.com

Funding and Grant Opportunities

KWF Exploration Call 2027-1 (Dutch Cancer Society). Pre-proposals are due November 3, 2026 at 12:00 noon, with full proposals due April 13, 2027, for fundamental cancer research, including psychosocial mechanisms. Applicants must be based at Dutch institutions, so this is most relevant for European collaborators; it is KWF’s last project-based Exploration Call before a shift to research-group funding in 2028. grantsby.eu

Conferences and Events

Association for Palliative Medicine, November webinars. APM lists “Palliative Medicine Starter Kit” on November 4 (12:30–13:30 UK time) and “Palliative Care & Oncological Emergencies” on November 18 (19:00–20:30 UK time), both online via Microsoft Teams. apmonline.org

Startup and Innovation Watch

Macmillan’s Digital Health App Library. Launched this summer with the app-review organisation ORCHA, the library brings together independently assessed wellbeing and health apps for people living with cancer. Curation matters: the existential question is not whether an app exists, but whether it helps a person feel less alone with what they are facing. macmillan.org.uk

To Close: An Existential Joke

A patient asked the existential therapist how long the sessions would last. “Fifty minutes,” she replied. “What you do with them is entirely up to you.”