Animal Chaplaincy Has Become A Growing Profession

Uganda has the best quality of death among low-income countries, according to the Economic Intelligence Unit. Its success stems in part from the strictly regulated but available supply of morphine, which is distributed by pharmacists in labeled bottles.

The palliative care system in Kerala, India, has been singled out as a beacon of hope in offering the possibility of a dignified death to everyone by safely providing morphine.

Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) brings together college students from different faiths so that they develop respect and appreciation for each other and different traditions. IFYC also cultivates interfaith leaders and organizes campus-based campaigns called Better Together. Some students have received push back from their faith communities, but students and faculty have reported the campaigns for interfaith engagement leads to positive outcomes of increasing tolerance on campuses. The organization has trained students who have run campaigns on 106 campuses.

Despite years of change, African Americans feel ostracized from the medical care community that is dominated mainly by white people, especially when it comes to hospices. Some are trying to remove the stigma of hospice care as well as make health care systems more fair.

A hospice patient's end-of-life desires are most often thwarted when well-meaning loved ones see the patient in some sort of distress. New programs ask first-responder paramedics to work with hospice programs to better honor a person’s end-of-life wishes.

These days, most rural communities in the U.S. are elderly communities - 15 percent of Wyoming’s population is over 65 and a high percentage of them live on ranches in small towns. New caregiver programs allow seniors to continue living at home and to keep doing what they are able, with assistance provided if needed.

Each year, close to three million dogs and cats are killed in shelters - in some cities more than 70 percent of the animals in shelters are euthanized. Target Zero is a program that works with fellow cities to spay and neuter animals and return them to the streets. Public complaints about animals have plummeted, and many shelters are well on their way to achieving a 'zero-kill' status.

Throughout the American West, recovering populations of wolves and grizzly bears have crept beyond the boundaries of national parks, clashing with sheep and cattle as they advance. Looking to Europe as an example, researchers are training and testing guard dogs in various western states as a means of deterring predators and protecting valuable livestock.

Patients' last years of life are the most expensive for the health care system. For a fifth of the cost, a Zen hospice program, in San Francisco, is helping those who are dying improve their quality of death by enjoying the present.

Ivory poaching has decreased the number of live elephants by one-fifth in the past decade. Although Kenya has ratified laws that make ivory poaching and trafficking punishable, identifying smugglers at border security is still a challenge. Airports in Kenya and Tanzania have employed dogs to sniff out ivory hidden in transit with a high success rate of 18 busts in four months at the Kenya location.