Author: Ramya Sampath

Journal: Journal of the American Medical Association

The first thing I noticed walking the halls of Pallium India, a hospital-based nongovernment organization dedicated to improving access to palliative care globally, was how the heavy ambient humidity of Kerala was somehow neutralized by the cool pistachio walls. In US hospitals, walls are often neutral, inoffensive shades of tan and
cream. Here, however, the pistachio wall color with its matching nylon curtains seemed to actually soothe. Unlike the persistent, beeping monitors of more technologically sophisticated health care settings—sounds that can interrupt and chafe the delicate
sleep of patients—at Pallium, the only constant sounds are those of the lulling fans
overhead. Their whirring creates comforting white noise that focuses the conversations
and interactions that happen under them.

Access full article: JAMA. 2020;324(21):2159-2160. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.22783