We are often asked, How can you do that? How can you stand to do that work? Such a dreary subject. Grim but supposedly necessary. Don’t you get depressed with all the talk of dying?
via The Bereavement Counselor: Public Misperception ~ Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog.
The Spiritual Care Task Force groups: research, implementation, and education work to ensure that spirituality and spiritual care remain at the front of people’s minds and at the heart of palliative care provision. For some, working in small teams or alone, awareness of education resources can be difficult.
Today, most children diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia — the most common type — survive. But in the past, we oncologists significantly underestimated the cost of that survival.
via Treating cancer patients puts everything else into perspective.
Dr. Gitlin is an expert on “person-centered” care for people with Alzheimer’s disease and the originator of a massive open online course (M.O.O.C.) on this condition, which will be offered through Coursera for five weeks starting in mid-October. You can sign up now.
But a rather stunning study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society suggests the quality of communication between the hospital and the nursing home is horrendous. The study was led by researchers from the University of Wisconsin, including nurse researcher, Dr. Barbara King and Geriatrician Dr. Amy Kind.
via The difficult transition between the hospital and nursing home.
This morning, I reviewed the significant number of law-related sessions at November’s American Public Health Law Association meeting. I really must add APHA to my list (now 5 long) of “must go” health law conferences.
via Medical Futility Blog: Health Law at APHA Annual Meeting.
Diane Meier, MD, and the Director of CAPC (Center for Advancement of Palliative Care), challenges healthcare professions to view giving bad news as a medical procedure. By that, she means it’s something that takes extensive training, observation, and practice. It’s not something you send a junior resident in to do when the attending is occupied with other things.
oining the Medical Order for Life Sustaining Treatment (MOLST) initiative, Maryland has implemented this new form that a physician or nurse practitioner completes that indicates a person’s wishes in respect to life-sustaining treatments, according to a Baltimore Sun interview with Dr. Barbara Carroll, MD, the medical director at Broadmead, a senior living community. Other states that provide MOLST guidelines are New York, Massachusetts and Delaware.
via In Maryland, a new treatment directive replaces standard DNR form.
Good old Earl Blumenauer. A bespectacled and bowtied Congressman from Oregon. He of the “death panel” proposal. Thank God he’s still here. Presuming that the crazy talk over the provision in the Affordable Care Act that would have paid doctors to discuss end-of-life issues with patients is over, he has introduced a separate bill with this provision and hopes to get it passed in the next couple of years.
via Billing for end of life conversations needs to be an honest discussion.
I’m going to make this week’s post very brief. That’s because I want you to spend more time watching the amazing video below than reading some superficial words that could not possibly do justice whatsoever to what you’re about to see. This, right here, is the essence of true love. At the end of life, you can only hope to have one single person love you as much as Fred loved his wife. I feel fairly sure you have nine extra minutes today. Seriously, spend it here.
All Things Palliative - Article Feed 