Palliative Care

The Division of Palliative Care provides expert interdisciplinary care to seriously ill children and their families at Manning Family Children's. Pediatric palliative care starts at any age and at any stage of serious illness, promoting healing, comfort, and optimization of quality of life. Our pediatric division is the first of its kind throughout the state of Louisiana, and our faculty represents two of the very few pediatric-fellowship-trained hospice and palliative care pediatricians in the Gulf South. Our core interdisciplinary palliative care team consists of physicians, social workers, nurses, and nurse practitioners. We have the privilege of teaching medical students, pediatric residents, internal medicine/pediatric residents, neonatology fellows, hematology/oncology fellows, pediatric hospitalist fellows, and hospice and palliative medicine fellows. Trainees can learn how to best delineate goals of care, assist families and multidisciplinary teams with shared medical decision making, perform advance care planning, communicate compassionately and empathetically, assess and treat common symptoms including pain, nausea, dyspnea, and anxiety, and coordinate a pediatric hospice referral, compassionate extubation and/ or palliative home transport

 

Faculty

Section Highlights

The LSU Section of Palliative Care was created in the Summer of 2025 and has grown to 2 members. As pediatricians serving in such a new subspecialty (formalized in 2008) with many nuances and misconceptions surrounding the care we provide, we recognize the importance of educating our future physicians about palliative care with special attention to the pediatric patient population. We continue to care for our patients and families at Manning Family Children's while also providing education and expertise to local hospice agencies throughout the state. Furthermore, our division chief leads the Gulf States Pediatric Palliative Care Consortium (GSPPCC) in ensuring that all children and families facing serious illness in the region have access to comprehensive support throughout their disease course, both in the hospital and at home, to prevent, anticipate, and mitigate suffering in all forms. 

---

Contact Information