Blogs

Description:  Click here for the April edition of Palliative Care Grand Rounds.  This month is hosted by blogger Palliative Care Success- he outlines what is happening in the palliative care blogosphere and provides links to all their posts.  Topics range from health care reform to futile care and hot discussion topics debating the need for

Description:  Thursday November 19, 2009:  It never occurred to me until today that enrolling my patients in hospice could cause them harm and distress. What unfolded is what happens all the time but which I hadn't recognized could have such a negative effect. My patient had been receiving home health through one agency for chronic

Description:  Saturday, March 20, 2010"Denmark" R.N. just died. She was my first breast cancer patient out of fellowship and training. My first breast cancer patient where I was the "doctor". No backup. Nobody to turn to for advice. I write the orders, I explain the side effects. I hold the hands. She was only 33

Description:  This is a link to a blog entry by CancerDoc, "a budding oncologist trying to make sense of the world."  It is a brutally honest post about an experience CancerDoc had watching a patient die in front of his daughter.  It's a bit gruesome, but is incredibly compelling.  It is an example of a

Description:  “Enough. The living will has failed, and it is time to say so.” So said Angela Fagerlin and Carl Schneider in 2004. “Living wills are still widely and confidently urged on patients, and they retain the allegiance of many. For these loyal advocates, we offer systematic proof that such persistence in error is but

Description:  Thursday October 29, 2009:  Will reform help or hinder the practice of Hospice and Palliative Medicine(HPM)? Help, if HPM physicians reconfigure themselves into "sought-after practices". The reconfiguration must be willful and carefully planned, and in advance of implementation of national health reform. In other words, bets must be placed now that the health care

Description:  The Opposite of Love Posted: 17 May 2010 The Emergency Department phoned my office right before lunch. I was on call for our general IM group, so when I was done with my morning schedule I walked across the street to the hospital. Greg, my partner's 38 year old patient, was a woodworker admitted

Description:  Thursday October 29, 2009:  A former colleague with many years of hospital executive experience recently accepted a position as the chief executive of a mid-sized, not-for-profit hospice (115 ADC). Upon review of employee staffing, she noticed that the hospice had half-dozen "arrangements" with physicians (with varying commitments but all under 15 hours per week)

Description:  I want to draw people's attention to a fantastic new piece in the New Yorker by Atul Gawande titled, "Letting Go: What should medicine do when it can't save your life?"  The stories told are raw and emotional, and offer glimpses into the struggles of patients with life-threatening illnesses, family caregivers, nurses, and physicians. 

Description:  The most recent (November 18) blog entry from Angela Morrow, RN about a hospice dog, Baxter, who brought cheer to dozens of human beings as they approached the end of life.    Link:  Visit Site