Palliative care: from medicine to surgery, from adults to children, and from calls to action to community approaches to advanced care planning

This issue of Annals of Palliative Medicine marks the inaugural issue of the new and recurring column entitled, “Surgical Palliative Care” (1). This long-overdue column will focus on the role of surgeons in the field of palliative medicine. The scope of the column is beyond that of just palliative surgeries, and it includes novel surgical approaches and outcomes, significant advances in surgical palliative care, and reviews across the surgical disciplines in the field of palliative care. For the premier manuscript of the column, Geoffrey P. Dunn, MD, FACS, Surgical Palliative Care Subcommittee Chair of Annals of Palliative Medicine, authored an informative perspective piece on the evolution of surgery, palliative care, and the American College of Surgeons (2). Dunn details the role that the American College of Surgeons has played in advancing palliative care for patients receiving surgical care, and he accounts the inception of the Committee on Surgical Palliative Care (CSPC).