Mere Mortal MD

FEBRUARY 24, 2025

I have been learning about Buddhism in the last several years, meditating daily and reading books about it, trying to incorporate the practices into my daily life. This book was written in the 1970s by a pastor Richard Bolles who wanted to help his friends find meaningful work. Why do I want to help my family financially?

Family 130

Family Families Diagnose Illness 130

GeriPal

OCTOBER 5, 2023

Summary Transcript Summary Communicating about a serious illness is hard. Last week’s podcast we talked about the challenge around miscommunication in serious illness. You’ve written in a lot of places, including your own books. This is Eric Widera. Alex: This is Alex Smith. Eric: And Alex, who do we have with us today?

Illness 136

Illness IT Patient-Centered Family 136

GeriPal

DECEMBER 8, 2022

Our loves, our triumphs, our failures, our work, our families. . As Thor notes, capturing patient stories has face validity as positively impacting the patients who share their stories and have them documented, and for the clinicians who get to truely and deeply know their patients in far greater depth than “what brought you to the hospital?”

Patient-Centered 115

Patient-Centered Illness Healthcare IT 115

GeriPal

MAY 9, 2024

all of whom focus their efforts on educating the general public about living and dying with a serious illness. She covers topics on death, dying, and hospice from a hospice nurse perspective, and she also has a book coming out called “ Nothing to Fear: Demystifying Death to Live More Fully ,” which is now available for pre-order.

Education 127

Education IT Illness Healthcare 127

GeriPal

SEPTEMBER 28, 2023

First, a clinician’s thoughts must be encoded into words, then transmitted often via sounds, and finally decoded back to thoughts by a patient or family member. A “Three-Stage Protocol” for Serious Illness Conversations: Reframing Communication in Real Time Transcript Eric: Welcome to the GeriPal podcast. Simple, right?

Family 144

Family Families Patient-Centered IT 144

GeriPal

OCTOBER 26, 2023

Within hours of recording this podcast, I joined a family meeting of an older patient who had multiple medical problems including cancer, and a slow but inexorable decline in function, weight, and cognition. And I started my career at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. But rarely does the podcast and clinical reality meet in the same day.

Patient-Centered 132

Patient-Centered Hospital Patients IT 132

GeriPal

DECEMBER 15, 2022

On today’s podcast we talk with Jason Karlawish, who we’ve had on previously talking about his book The Problem of Alzheimer’s and with Aaron Kesselhim, to discuss FDA approval of Aducanumab , as well as frequent guest and host Ken Covinsky. . Been in the hospital four times, vented, been told the story to her family, she won’t live.

IT 105

IT Patient-Centered Healthcare Illness 105

GeriPal

MAY 22, 2025

Jenny Chen is a palliative care fellow at Yale who regularly sings for her seriously ill patients. When we started doing more music stuff for our patients in the hospital, a lot of people started to think, hmm, what would I want to listen to? What’s your favorite book? Eric 01:41 Tyler, why’d you choose this song?

IT 96

IT Patient-Centered Patients Board-Certified 96

GeriPal

MAY 15, 2025

Prior podcasts on the ethics of nudging , and a different trial conducted by Kate and Scott in which the default for hospitalized seriously ill patients was to receive a palliative care consult. Many were community hospitals. Participants were critically ill and intubated. What is sludge? The prognosis nudge did nothing.

Patient-Centered 116

Patient-Centered Hospital IT Illness 116

GeriPal

MARCH 13, 2025

Summary Transcript CME Summary As far as weve come in the 50 years since Balfour Mount and Sue Britton opened the first palliative care at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Quebec, have we lost something along the way? His latest book is called Becoming Forest A Story of Deep Belonging, and he’s the founder of the Becoming Forest Project.

IT 104

IT Patient-Centered Family Families 104

GeriPal

MAY 12, 2022

He is also author of the book, “ Walk with the Weary: Lessons in Humanity in Health Care ,” and was featured in this Atlantic article. I have written about it in the book. Alex: I love the story of this book, how it starts so locally and then moves on to the Kerala region and then moves to India. Tom: Okay, great.

Community 115

Community IT Relationship Healthcare 115

GeriPal

MAY 4, 2023

We remember bucking the rules, figuring out who you are, hair on fire, feeling invulnerable, trying to figure out who you are – and now those adolescents are stuck in the hospital, with doctors and parents telling them what to do, having their autonomy crushed by the medical institution, realizing they’re not invulnerable.

IT 83

IT Family Families Illness 83

GeriPal

MARCH 24, 2022

Then listen to these prior podcasts with Sean Morrison and Rebecca Sudore about this issue, and we recently discussed differences between Advance Care Planning and Serious Illness Communication with Juliet Jacobsen and Rachelle Bernacki. . And especially for those who may have nontraditional families. This is Eric Widera.

Illness 72

Illness IT Healthcare Patient-Centered 72

GeriPal

FEBRUARY 8, 2024

Hospital Chaplains, Spirituality, and Pain Management: A Qualitative Study. The illness narratives suffering, healing, and the human condition. The more we can notice that, the more we can actually be present for that family and actually see how they’re experiencing it. Pain Manag Nurs. 2023 Dec 20:S1524-9042(23)00202-3.

IT 137

IT Family Families Physicals 137

GeriPal

SEPTEMBER 1, 2022

Social workers augment a team’s ability to provide whole-person care, often aiding to identify and meaningfully address the wide variety of challenges and unmet needs faced by individuals and families facing serious illness. And so when you have that, that’s so good for the family. That’s so good for us.

IT 102

IT Family Families Clinic 102

GeriPal

APRIL 28, 2022

Eric: I’m looking forward to talking about art and humor in palliative care and we’re caring for seriously ill patients. So for those listening to the podcast, this is a clown looking very sad and what looks like a hospital administrator. I was just thinking back to yesterday, we were in a family meeting. Eric: Yeah.

IT 145

IT Hospital Patients Illness 145

GeriPal

JANUARY 16, 2025

Summary Transcript CME Summary Many older adults lose decision-making capacity during serious illnesses, and a significant percentage lack family or friends to assist with decisions. So those types of relationships, clergy, non family members, we talk about, I think cohabitating unmarried couples. Is that fair? Tim 11:59 Yeah.

Patient-Centered 109

Patient-Centered IT Patients Healthcare 109

GeriPal

OCTOBER 3, 2024

Our focus today, however, was on her most recently published book titled How to Say Goodby e. This beautiful book began as a very personal project for Wendy while she was the artist-in-residence at Zen Hospice. They had triple diagnoses, often life threatening illness, but also mental illness and usually some kind of addiction.

IT 122

IT Patient-Centered Patients Relationship 122

GeriPal

JANUARY 30, 2025

In one corner, weighing in at decades of experience, well known for heavy hits of bedside assessments, strong patient-family relationships, and a knockout punch of interdisciplinary collaboration, we have in-person palliative care consults. Summary Transcript CME Summary It is a battle royale on this weeks GeriPal podcast. But watch out!

Telehealth 105

Telehealth Patient-Centered IT Patients 105

GeriPal

JUNE 15, 2023

” And Bing responded, I should ask about how AI can help identify patients who need palliative care and reduce hospitalizations, what are the benefits and challenges of using AI in decision-making, communication, palliative care, and how could AI support the quality of life and dignity of patients for those who are receiving palliative care?

IT 99

IT Patient-Centered Patients Healthcare 99

GeriPal

MARCH 6, 2025

Michaels Hospital in Toronto, and health justice activist. link] PEACH Good Wishes Program A program that provides meaningful gifts for unhoused individuals who are terminally ill. Michael’s Hospital in the Department of Family and Community Medicine. His story, which he shares on todays podcast, is remarkable.

Healthcare 100

Healthcare IT Community Illness 100

GeriPal

NOVEMBER 17, 2022

I mean, people who used to be in hospitals are now with quicker DRGs. Some take care of people who’ve got more healthcare needs, more mental illness, more dementia. Others take care of people less so, a more hospitality model, if you will. Or do you want to go to the hospital if something happens? Alex: Yeah.

Community 97

Community IT Mental Health Medical 97

GeriPal

MARCH 24, 2023

2021 Association of Hospice Profit Status With Family Caregivers’ Reported Care Experiences. I’m very proud of the work that we do every day and we take care of patients and families no matter where they live or who they are to help them meet their end of life goals. How do we make this work for patients and families?

IT 113

IT Provider Patients Family 113

GeriPal

APRIL 24, 2025

Daneila Lamas wrote about this issue in the New York Times this week -after we recorded – in her story, a family requested an herbal infusion for their dying mother via feeding tube. If its potentially unsafe, but has robust evidence, well thats most of the treatments we offer seriously ill patients! Ivermectin to treat cancer.

Patient-Centered 77

Patient-Centered IT Patients Illness 77

GeriPal

MARCH 3, 2022

A little over a decade ago, Ken Covinsky wrote a GeriPal post about a Jack Iwashyna JAMA study finding that older adults who survive sepsis are likely to develop new functional and cognitive deficits after they leave the hospital. To this day, Ken’s post is still one of the most searched and viewed posts on GeriPal. Eric: What was that paper?

Patient-Centered 96

Patient-Centered Patients IT Hospital 96

GeriPal

AUGUST 8, 2024

I first met Thomas when he visited UC Berkeley in the late 90’s after publishing his book, “ The Undertaking: Stories from the Dismal Trade.” We cover a wide range on this topic, weaving in our own stories of loss with Thomas’s experiences, stories, and poems from years of caring for families after their loved one’s have died.

IT 124

IT Family Families Relationship 124

GeriPal

NOVEMBER 7, 2024

We also briefly mention Susan Wong’s terrific studies that found a disconnect between older adults with renal failure’s expressed values, focused on comfort, and their advance care planning and end-of-life care received, which focused on life extension; and another study that found quality of life was sustained until late in the illness course.

Management 116

Management Patient-Centered Patients IT 116

GeriPal

AUGUST 24, 2023

Harvey is probably best known for his work in developing dignity therapy, a psychological intervention designed specifically to address many of the psychological, existential, and spiritual challenges that patients and their families face as death approaches. And who’s a latest book is Dignity and Care: The Human Side of Medicine.

Patient-Centered 98

Patient-Centered Patients IT Illness 98

GeriPal

APRIL 13, 2023

Summary Transcript Summary Social connections impact our health in profound ways, whether it is the support we receive from family and friends in navigating serious illness, the joy from shared social activities, or connecting with our community. They may have few family members, live alone.

IT 99

IT Community Patient-Centered Medical 99

GeriPal

MARCH 31, 2022

Links to essays and books by Marilyn McEntyre. Patient Poets: Illness from the Inside Out. She is written a number of books, including one that’s probably most relevant to today. I think it’s titled Patient Poets Illness. Marilyn: Patient Poets: Illness From Inside Out. AlexSmithMD. Since a kid?

IT 70

IT Patients Medical Illness 70

GeriPal

FEBRUARY 20, 2025

And we often do, as healthcare providers, care for people who are going through traumatic events, through just being sick in the hospital or a home or dying at home. You know, we may have known people, we may have cared for people who were dying. Like, does that indirect? Is that also a trauma? Which may not be necessarily traumatizing.

Patient-Centered 66

Patient-Centered IT Screening Patients 66

GeriPal

SEPTEMBER 12, 2024

So whether it’s an encounter with a patient or whether it’s a family meeting or a clinical practice meeting or a feedback session with a fellow, the idea that we have both the ability to be very full and open and also selective and disciplined about how it is that we. We were often the only ones left in the hospital.

IT 110

IT Healthcare Healthcare Professional Patient-Centered 110

GeriPal

SEPTEMBER 5, 2024

Her most recent book is Elderhood. He had a 14 month recovery in hospital and rehab and continually asked to have life sustaining treatment suspended so that he could be allowed to die. So she bled a lot and finally called for help and was transferred to the hospital, where she started crashing in the trauma room. It was clear.

Patients 98

Patients IT Patient-Centered Hospital 98

GeriPal

DECEMBER 29, 2022

Dealing with conflict in caring for the seriously ill: “it was just out of the question” JAMA 2005. So many times, family caregivers have to argue with their loved ones about getting more help in the home or moving them to a place that has safety, has close proximity to medical care. Journal of Patient Experience.

Family 96

Family Families IT Patient-Centered 96

GeriPal

NOVEMBER 3, 2022

You’d imagine though that our professional expertise and experiences in helping patients and families cope with loss and grief would be helpful in managing our own personal losses. Matt, and others, including Craig, just not too long ago, wrote a book called Loss and Grief: Personal Stories of Doctors and Other Healthcare Professionals.

Healthcare Professional 102

Healthcare Professional Healthcare IT Relationship 102

GeriPal

APRIL 21, 2022

Poetry helps us grapple with our own experiences of illness. Redwing: So I grew up in a pretty intellectual family, but my brother and sister were six and 10 years older than me, and they were always feeding me literature and poetry. When I was about nine-years-old, they gave me a book of poems of Edna St. To let it go. .

Patient-Centered 93

Patient-Centered IT Community Illness 93

GeriPal

MAY 1, 2025

Alex 00:07 We are delighted to welcome Peter Selwyn, who is a family medicine and palliative medicine doctor and chairman of the Department of Family and Social Medicine and director of the Palliative Care Program at Montefiore E instein and author of Surviving the the Personal Journey of an AIDS Doctor. Who are our guests?

Primary Care 94

Primary Care IT Provider Clinic 94