Remembering Deb

Many of us involved in palliative care would have worked with Deb Rawlings at some stage. Deb has worked across Australia on national projects and with many organisations. Sadly, Deb died at the start of this year. We want to acknowledge the contribution she made to RePaDD, to Finders and to the palliative care sector generally through her clinical work, her projects and research studies, and her teaching.

Deb was part of Flinders teaching team for many years and was committed to building the capability of health professionals who needed to support people with palliative care needs in hospitals and in the community. Many health professionals across Australia would catch up with her at national conferences and talk about how the post graduate courses were so important in developing the sector and growing confidence alongside competence. She was instrumental in moving the community facing short courses online and making access to learning easier.

She was a pioneer in her research and project work, getting involved with the national program early seeing the value of research and project work to the discipline. She spent over 15 years working on different projects including the national rural palliative care project, PCOC (in SA), CareSearch, and most recently working with Kim Devery leading the End-of-Life Essentials Project. This project offered the chance to create dedicated content for those working in the acute sector. It also gave her an opportunity to publish around the value of online education. The project also resulted in an opportunity to lead rapid literature reviews which would inform the 2023 National Consensus Statement: Essential elements for safe and high-quality end-of-life care. All of this was work that made a difference.

Deb also had a passion around community views to death and dying. Having developed much content for CareSearch she was a very willing collaborator in developing the Dying2Learn MOOC. Many of those who participated in the MOOC will remember her commitment to sharing knowledge, her engagement and encouragement, her openness to continuing a conversation around death and dying, and her compassion for those who shared their suffering. Dying2Learn also sparked new research interests including her research on death doulas and their role in a care system, death euphemisms, and funeral practices and rituals.

For those of us who worked with Deb, we will remember her boisterous laugh, her work ethic, being first into the office, her willingness to bake, and her kindness and support to those in our teams who were facing the realities and complexities of death and dying.

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