Palliative Brain

Palliative Brain is a living educational resource designed to support learning and bedside clinical reasoning in palliative medicine.

It was first created in May 2026 by Henry He in an effort to increase the usefulness of his notes, and also so that he didn’t have to sign in to his Notion account each time he was at a new computer. It is partially inspired by the Palliative Care Network of Wisconsin’s Fast Facts series created by Dr. Sean Marks. The phrase “Quick Hits” is inspired by Dr. Anton Helman’s EM Cases .

The website was built using Quartz 4.

Philosophy

The goal of Palliative Brain is not encyclopedic completeness. The goal is fast, clinically useful, and evidence-based cognitive support, with deep dives available when needed.

Content is written primarily in the Canadian context, with sources including palliative medicine textbooks, peer-reviewed publications, and OpenEvidence. Citations are provided whenever possible.

Notes are generally written using the “RAME” framework: Recognize and Assess, Anticipate, Manage, in an Evidence-Based way. This is an acronym I made up, but very much in the spirit of what a mentor of mine loved to preach:

The key to good symptom management is good symptom assessment.

— Dr. Alan Taniguchi

Disclaimer

Palliative Brain is not a substitute for clinical judgment, specialist consultation, institutional policies, or individualized patient care. Recommendations and summaries may evolve over time and should always be interpreted within the context of current evidence, local practice standards, and patient-specific circumstances. Use of this resource is at the reader’s own discretion and responsibility.