MISSION:
The MERI CENTER for Education in Palliative Care is dedicated to educating both professional and non-professional caregivers by providing practical training and safe spaces to explore the essential questions that face people who are living with serious illness or suffering with grief and loss -- What matters most to me now? What gives my life meaning?
VISION:
Our goal is to equip both the general public as well as healthcare professionals with the needed tools to better care for those with serious illness and, at the same time, care for themselves. Creativity and sustainability are key to this vision.
The Story of Our Name: “MERI” (Making Education Relevant and Integrated)
The acronym “MERI” stands for “Making Education Relevant and Integrated,” which emphasizes the important vision of making primary palliative care education so well-integrated into our health care system that it becomes routine, and so easily relevant that care for people at the end of life is normalized and situated within the most basic parts of our humanity and community.
In addition, the MERI Center name has a special association for the Mount Zion campus. The name is also connected to a very special patient, Merijane Block, who was cared for at the Mount Zion campus for a quarter of a century. Merijane died in 2017 after more than 25 years of living with metastatic breast cancer. Merijane is beloved among the doctors, nurses, and staff at the cancer center at 1600 Divisadero Street. She insisted that her health care team treat her with dignity and respect. Moreover, she insisted that her professional caregivers recognize their own humanity in the work they do with patients. Merijane’s insistence--a lesson to hundreds of Mount professionals over the years (including Dr. Rabow and Ms. Keyssar)-- is a poignant and inspiring re-statement of the mission and values of the MERI Center. Patients and caregivers are joined in a sacred but common task of caring for each other in the face of challenge and loss.
https://palliativemedicine.ucsf.edu/
http://cancer.ucsf.edu/support/sms/