This update reviews hospice and palliative medicine articles published between January 1, 2008 and December 31, 2008. The articles were selected by members of the End-of-life Interest Group of the Society of General Internal Medicine based on a comprehensive literature review. The literature review included Medline (keyword and title search for palliative care, hospice, and terminal care) plus references from the Shaare- Zedek online database (http://www.chernydatabase.org), yielding a total of 4538 references. We also undertook a hand search of 10 journals including Annals of Internal Medicine, British Medical Journal, Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, Journal of the American Medical Association, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Journal of General Internal Medicine, Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, Journal of Palliative Medicine, Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, and PC-FACS (Fast Article Critical Summaries for Clinicians in
Palliative Care).