“Don’t separate the specialties in silos.”
There is only one clinical department for palliative care in Austria, and it is at Vienna General Hospital. The chair there has been held since the beginning of the year by Univ.-Prof. Priv.-Doz. DDr. Eva Katharina Masel, MSc, inne. With us she spoke u.a. On their wishes for the specialty of palliative care in Austria and the role of spirituality. She also tells us tips for talking to patients* whose illness will foreseeably lead to death.
Congratulations again on taking up your professorship at MedUni Vienna earlier this year. How do you look back on the first year? What were challenges, what were successes?
E. K. Masel: Thank you! On the one hand, I am an "old hand", as I have been working at the palliative care unit of the AKH since 2010, but on the other hand, my job as head of department is of course new, including obligations and administrative tasks I did not have before.