End of Life Resources

End of Life Resources is a library of information meant to assist physicians, caregivers and patients find information they need to better carry out end-of-life care.

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Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) management in palliative care units and hospices in Germany: a nationwide survey on patient isolation policies and quality of life.

Synopsis:

This article brings up an interesting conversation about treatment strategy in a palliative care setting. MRSA and other chronic/common infections are almost always treated in a hospital settings with a strong course of antibiotics and in many cases isolation precautions. What effect does this have on a patient wishing to be treated with palliative medicine? Is there a decrease in quality of life? Are strong courses of antibiotics and isolation necessary for patients who have body systems and minds that are already taxed? How do you balance the patient's wishes against the health and well being of health care professionals and other patients (spreading of infection)? This article addresses some of these questions with 229 returned questionnaires from 179 different palliative care facilities and 181 hospice facilities across Germany.

Partial Abstract: "For palliative care settings, little is known about the benefits of specific methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus containment regimens and the burdens patient isolation imposes on affected patients, their families, and professional caregivers. The aim is to explore the current practice of MRSA management and its impact on inpatients' quality of life as perceived by professional caregivers."

Why You Should Care: The Role of Palliative Medicine in Patient-Centered Care

Description:

From Left to Right: Stephen Lockhart, MD, PhD; Jeffrey Stoneberg, DO; Claudie Bolduc, MPH; Robert Martensen, MD, PhD; Eric Widera, MD On June 17th, 2011 Sutter Health East Bay Region of California sponsored a symposium titled, "Why You Should Care: The Role of Palliative Medicine in Patient-Centered Care." The event was directed by Stephen Lockhart, MD, PhD who is the regional vice president and chief medical officer of Sutter Health East Bay Region and board member of the Cunniff-Dixon Foundation. File attachments as seen below are PDF files of power point presentations delivered at the event.

PHOTO: (From Left to Right: Stephen Lockhart, MD, PhD; Jeffrey Stoneberg, DO; Claudie Bolduc, MPH; Robert Martensen, MD, PhD; Eric Widera, MD)

The symposium was emotional, informative and exciting in a few specific ways: The speakers, including CDF's Robert Martensen, MD, PhD as the keynote speaker, were spectacluar and covered a wide range of topics including goals of care, prognosis, pain management, and communicating bad news. Further, CDF provided Sutter Health with a version of a recent project with the American College of Surgeons called, Palliative Care: A Clinical Guide (taken from the original Surgical Palliative Care: A Residents Guide), which was distributed to every attendee at the symposium. Lastly, it was amazing to see two of the speakers at the day long symposium at work, Eric Widera, MD and Jeffrey Stoneberg, DO, who are recipients of Cunniff-Dixon/Hastings Center Physican Awards from the past two years.

Get to know Jeffrey Stoneberg in the breif clip below:

Media

Video:

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3 attachments

2011 Cunniff-Dixon Hastings Center Physician Awards Video

Description:

Care for patients at the end of life has long troubled American medicine, not only in its failure to provide good palliative care, but also in the relationship between doctors and patients. Many efforts to remedy this situation have emerged: a growing and strengthening palliative care movement, better understanding of the situation of patients at the end of life, a sharper focus on the values and behavior of physicians in their care of the dying, and a more general effort to gain medical recognition that end-of-life care is just as important as care during all other phases of life. Great progress has been made, but there is still a distance to go. As the number and percentage of people who die from chronic and degenerative diseases increase, the physician skills and virtues necessary to provide good end-of-life care also increase.

The aim of The Hastings Center Cunniff-Dixon Physician Awards is to foster those skills and virtues by providing financial prizes to those physicians, young and old, who have shown their care of patients to be exemplary, a model of good medicine for other physicians, and a great benefit in advancing the centrality of end-of-life care as a basic part of the doctor-patient relationship.