Palliative medicine provides clinical leadership, care and support to prevent and relieve suffering for people with life-limiting and life-threatening illness.

• Its diagnostic and therapeutic priorities focus on meeting every individual patient’s goals through shared decision-making with them and those important to them
• It is practiced both as part of multidisciplinary palliative care teams and in partnership with other relevant specialties to deliver individualised, holistic care
• It is a medical specialty recognised by the respective nations’ Royal Colleges of Physicians

Palliative Medicine’s specific expertise is in:
• Assessing and managing physical, psychological and spiritual symptoms and in mitigating distress
• Clinical analysis of and decision-making in complex scenarios, such as when a patient’s clinical needs, preferences and interests are finely balanced and may require skilled application of relevant ethical and legal guidance
• Skilled communication about and co-ordination of care, especially at disease transitions and boundaries between care settings
• Working with partners, colleagues and organisations across multiple sectors to provide excellent multidisciplinary care for patients and those important to them
• Care and support to those important to the patient, including facilitating their bereavement care

The Association for Palliative Medicine of Great Britain and Ireland (APM) is the world’s largest representative body for doctors practicing or interested in Palliative Medicine, with a growing membership of over 1,000. We welcome international members.
• Full and Associate membership is open to doctors practicing or interested in palliative medicine
• Student membership is open to undergraduate medical students
• Affiliate membership is being developed for other clinicians with an interest in palliative medicine
We work in strategic alliance with those who can contribute to achieving our vision, supporting our values and delivering our aims.