Expertise and empathy for infants and parents

My internship in New York, at Columbia University, was an extraordinary journey, full of intense emotions and deep meaning. I had the honour of being part of a special team composed of two nurses – Dr Bryn McNamee-Tweed and Dr Frances McCharty – and Professor Elvira Parravicini. This unique, multidisciplinary and competent team constitutes the Comfort Care Program, which aims to provide support and guidance to families from the moment of diagnosis (of life-limiting/threatening condition) to birth and afterwards.

This experience was not only an educational opportunity, but a real encounter with what may seem at first glance to be the limitations of medicine, but which turn out to be the founding values on which, in my opinion, our profession should be based. Taking care of these families is a great privilege for me, to be able to accompany them, to help them welcome and celebrate the life of their child, no matter how much time they are given.

Since I started this journey, I have realised the need to keep a true and authentic look at our patients, their pain and suffering. The greatest lesson of these months has been to understand the importance and the ability to be present. This kind of care should be for everyone, which is why over these months we have been working on a first article that talks about the need to integrate the pillars of palliative care into everyday care in neonatal intensive care units, and how this helps to reduce stress in the parents and helps them cope with the hard months of hospitalisation and reuniting with their baby.

We then worked on an article highlighting the development that has taken place in Italy, in Bologna, in the Percorso Giacomo: a perinatal palliative care pathway created following the Comfort Care Program guidelines. This article was published in Pediatric Research.

There are many other scientific projects we are working on, bridging the gap between Bologna and New York, precisely to support that the complexity of perinatal palliative care requires great knowledge and clinical skill as well as empathy and care for the newborn and his family.

Today, looking back, I can say with certainty that my experience at Columbia University was not simply a chapter in my academic education, but a key moment in my personal and professional growth. To have known someone like Professor Parravicini and to have been able to learn from her, being at her side, was a privilege I will always carry in my heart; to have been part of the Comfort Care team for seven months was a responsibility I will carry with me forever. I am deeply grateful for having had this opportunity and I am happy to be able to return to Bologna with a richer outlook and a little heavier baggage.