Final Chapter: Californians' Attitudes and Experiences with Death and Dying

From The GeriPal Blog, Feb 21, 2012. 

 

A new survey commissioned by the California HealthCare Foundation gives some great insight into the attitudes and experiences that Californians have with death and dying. The survey, conducted by Lake Research Partners and the Coalition for Compassionate Care of California, polled a representative sample of 1669 adult Californians including 393 respondents who lost a loved one in the past 12 months. The results can be summarized as follows :       Read More ...

Our Unrealistic Attitudes About Death through a Doctor's Eyes

Love this piece. Great images: medical checkmate, medical house of cards, suffering is like fire, and "We sure put Dad thru the wringer!"

Nancy

by Craig Bowron. Published in The Washington Post Opinions on February 17, 2012.   Link to full article. 
Dr. Bowron is a hospital-based internist in Minneapolis.

I know where this phone call is going. I’m on the hospital wards, and a physician in the emergency room downstairs is talking to me about an elderly patient who needs to be admitted to the hospital. The patient is new to me, but the story is familiar: He has several chronic conditions — heart failure, weak kidneys, anemia, Parkinson’s and mild dementia — all tentatively held in check by a fistful of medications. He has been falling more frequently, and his appetite has fallen off, too. Now a stroke threatens to topple this house of cards.  Read more ...

When Surrogates Override the DNR : A Terrific Geriatrics and Palliative Care Teaching Video

I came across this excellent post on the GeriPal Blog.  
It includes a video  that would be very helpful for teaching. -- Nancy

"I'd like to draw GeriPal readers' attention to a terrific article from the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society called, "When Doctors and Daughters Disagree: Twenty-two Days and Two Blinks of an Eye."  The paper is by Peter Abadir, Tom Finucane, and Matthew McNabney (Hopkins).

While I'm sure this paper is of great interest to ethicisits, clinicians, and researchers, my primary motivation for blogging about it is the potential for use as a teaching tool. The free availability of the video of the daughters recounting their experiences, emotions, and thoughts is such a compelling portrayal of the emotional and ethical complexities of the case.  And you won't lose the forest for the trees.  The primary teaching point - that family should be involved in advance care conversations - is made clearly by the daughter in the video."     Read More ...