McCulloch House—Monash Medical Centre's Palliative Care ward—has celebrated a decade of caring for patients with life-limiting illnesses.

Over that time, it has provided care to thousands of people and pioneered practices that have become standard across Australia and the world.

The House was named after Margaret McCulloch, wife of four-time Victorian Premier Sir James McCulloch, and opened in 1889 as a convalescent home for women. 

It underwent a number of name changes and transformations until it became part of the Monash Medical Centre development in Clayton.

Supported by a major fundraising campaign, McCulloch House was reborn as a purpose-built 16-bed inpatient palliative care unit unique in Victoria because it was also an integral part of a specialist hospital.

McCulloch House offers its patients the ambience and philosophy of a hospice unit, supported by access to all the facilities of a major teaching hospital when required. 

Acting Head of the Unit Kate Jackson said since McCulloch House's opening, pain relief had been a major area of interest and clinical research.

Dr Jackson nominated ketamine research as the most exciting contribution to date in improving quality of life for patients with life-limiting illnesses, in particular late stage cancer.

The idea of using ketamine to improve otherwise difficult-to-control pain resulted from an improved understanding in the mid-1990s of the factors that tended to maintain and worsen pain. 

The McCulloch House staff decided to test ketamine's effect against difficult-to-control cancer pain.

The results showed up to half the patients—whose pain had not responding to standard analgesics—achieved good pain relief. 

Monash's approach in using ketamine is now standard practice and has brought improved quality of life to patients throughout the palliative care world.