Book excerpt: Tarascon Palliative Medicine Pocketbook is the only shirt pocket-sized, quick reference for guiding those difficult conversations with patients and family members who require palliative and hospice care. Practitioners will find helpful ideas as well as guidance on managing difficult to control symptoms whether practicing in a busy clinic, making home visits or managing the hospitalized patient. Containing communication skill techniques, prognostication tools, symptom management options and ethical issues, this one of a kind, portable guide is an ideal tool for any member of the Palliative Medicine team, including: physicians, nurses, social workers, chaplains, pharmacists and more.