This textbook on palliative social work is a companion volume to the Oxford Textbook of Palliative Medicine and the Oxford Textbook of Palliative Nursing. To that end, this chapter will accomplish the following:

♦Patients with serious illness and their families present to emergency departments (EDs) with symptom distress, caregiver distress, and for management of end-of-life issues.

♦The palliative care needs of patients and families in the ED often revolve around pain and symptom management, clarification of advance directives (ADs), and death in the setting of the ED environment.

♦Both ED and palliative social workers can improve the care that seriously ill patients receive in the ED by identifying unmet needs and providing specific palliative social work interventions.