Overcoming Obstacles to Palliative Care: Lessons to Learn from Our Physician Counterparts.

In the past 40 years, the field of palliative care for people faced many of the same obstacles in development and expansion that veterinary palliative care now confronts. A series of interviews with pioneers in human palliative care revealed what those early obstacles were professionally, personally, and institutionally. Many of the hurdles are strikingly similar to what veterinary professionals are currently facing in their attempts to grow palliative care as both an independent subspecialty and an integrated part of general practice. We can translate their experiences and successes to help veterinary palliative care flourish.