GeriPal

MARCH 14, 2024

This simple challenge was focused on putting ourselves in the shoes of our patients with dysphagia who are prescribed thickened liquids. And I think that we’re at this kind of crossroads right now in dysphagia, and dysphagia management where our patients are suffering. We revisit it, and make things better for our patients.

IT 125

IT Patient-Centered Hospital Individual 125

GeriPal

JUNE 8, 2023

When I’m on palliative care consults and attending in our hospice unit we have to counsel patients about deprescribing and de-intensifying diabetes medications. And we invited Tamryn Gray from the Dana Farber joins us to ask insightful questions, including: What blood sugar range should we target for patients in the nursing home or hospice?

Diabetes 74

Diabetes Management Patient-Centered Families 74

PEMBlog

OCTOBER 2, 2024

I’ll make the important distinction between gastritis – which is diagnosed only via endoscopy – and dyspepsia, the term best used to describe the symptoms many patients experience. I’ll dive into the latest clinical practice guidelines and discuss evidence-based approaches to diagnosis and treatment.

Diagnosis 52

Diagnosis Management IT Patient-Centered 52

Plum Health

OCTOBER 11, 2024

Have you ever found yourself in need of medical attention but overwhelmed by the myriad of clinics and healthcare options out there? This guide will help you understand the different types of clinics and services they offer, so you can make an informed decision about where to seek medical care. It's a common challenge many people face.

Clinic 52

Clinic Primary Care Doctor Primary Care Chronic Condition 52

GeriPal

JUNE 27, 2024

How, though, do we navigate anxiety and help our patients who may end up in the anxiety spiral that becomes so hard to get out of? I have so many questions, and I promise we’re going to get to the management of anxiety and serious illness. Guests Alex Gamble and Brianna Williamson have no relationships to disclose.

Illness 130

Illness IT Diagnosis Patient-Centered 130

GeriPal

JUNE 12, 2025

Summary Transcript CME Summary If you’re anything like me, you might find the process of what happens to patients when they visit a radiation oncologist somewhat mysterious. Anish 01:02 Well, I speak, you know, from a physician lens of some of the patients that I get referred, and by the time there’s. This is not a good option.

Patient-Centered 103

Patient-Centered Referral Patients IT 103

GeriPal

NOVEMBER 21, 2024

We are going to tackle this question and so many more about coping on this week’s podcast with Dani Chammas , a recurring GeriPal guest, psychiatrist, and palliative care doc at UCSF, and Amanda Moment , a Palliative Care Social Worker at Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center. Coping in the setting of serious illness.

Illness 126

Illness IT Patient-Centered Patients 126

Rao Doctor

APRIL 3, 2025

In my previous article I covered the types of illness and the causes. Infrared thermometers, which measure temperature from the forehead or ear, are also prevalent in clinical settings. Rectal method is more appropriate for infants, children and unconscious or comatose patients who are not able to hold the thermometer in their mouth.

Diagnosis 130

Diagnosis Management Illness Diagnose 130

GeriPal

JANUARY 25, 2024

Summary Transcript Summary In a JAMA 2020 systematic review of palliative care for non-cancer serious illness, Kieran Quinn found many positives, as we discussed on our podcast and in our editorial. He also found gaps, including very few studies of patients with lung disease, and little impact of trials on quality of life.

Patient-Centered 123

Patient-Centered IT Illness Patients 123

GeriPal

JUNE 13, 2024

Summary Transcript Summary I always find cachexia in serious illness puzzling. In today’s podcast, we had the opportunity to learn from a renowned expert in palliative care, Eduardo Bruera, about cachexia and anorexia in serious illness. But the patient would say, well, but it still hurts, though.

Illness 134

Illness Patient-Centered Patients IT 134

GeriPal

MARCH 9, 2023

FDA is considering approval, shifting away from Schedule I restrictions, paving the way for use in clinical practice. Early data on efficacy in patients with anxiety and demoralization are promising. She’s also a leader in the Cancer Prevention and Control Center at the University of Colorado there at the Cancer Center.

Patient-Centered 91

Patient-Centered Community IT Medical 91

GeriPal

DECEMBER 19, 2024

Still, we havent talked about integrating palliative care into psychiatry or in the care of those with severe mental illness. What does it look like to take a palliative approach to severe mental illness? Is “terminal” mental illness a thing? Eric 01:34 Oh, I love that. Dani 01:36 More to talk about there.

Illness 102

Illness Mental Health IT Patient-Centered 102

GeriPal

JULY 11, 2024

It’s a jampacked 50 minutes, filled with pearls on taking care of patients with liver disease. Kirsten 04:16 So, in emergency medicine, obviously, we are interacting and caring for these both exciting and interesting, but also very complex and humbling patients to care for in the ED setting. What’s the connection and why?

Patient-Centered 110

Patient-Centered IT Patients Clinic 110

GeriPal

OCTOBER 20, 2022

And, who within ASPE guides aging policy and connects policy to every day health challenges experienced by patients and clinicians? Alex: And we are delighted to welcome Rasheeda Hall, who is a physician scientist in the division of nephrology at Duke University School of Medicine, and sees patients at the Durham VA.

Complication 52

Complication Patient-Centered IT Patients 52

GeriPal

JUNE 9, 2022

Clinical growth of geriatrics programs has lagged academic research, despite the rapid aging of the population. . In contrast to geriatrics, the evidence base for palliative care lagged clinical growth, in part because palliative care has no centralized “home” at the National Institutes of Health. What does “early” really mean?

Consulting 100

Consulting Patient-Centered Diagnosis IT 100

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. Patient Values: Three Important Questions-Tell me more? Simple, right? Not so much, as each one of these steps is fraught with miscommunication. What else? Eric: Yeah.

Families 144

Families Family Patient-Centered IT 144

GeriPal

OCTOBER 24, 2024

Summary Transcript CME Summary Cannabis is complicated. If you believe the evidence for efficacy to manage symptoms like neuropathic pain, how do you even start to think about recommending these products to patients? And then one patient who really knew more about a topic than I did, which unfortunately happens much more often.

Medical 100

Medical IT Patient-Centered Healthcare 100

GeriPal

FEBRUARY 23, 2023

Summary Transcript Summary You know when you walk out of a patient’s room and have that sense, “This isn’t going to go well.” The patient is sick and getting sicker, and refuses to let you talk with family or other members of her inner circle. Should you stop at “no?” Lynn: I do. Alex, can you play Send the Sun, by Nikki Lane?

Families 98

Families Family Patient-Centered IT 98

GeriPal

JUNE 30, 2022

You have a patient with dementia severe enough that she cannot recognize relatives. Should she have an operation, and risk the pain, potential complications, and attendant delirium associated with the operation? Samir: For me, it really came out of an interest in improving the care of patients who undergo surgery. AlexSmithMD.

Patient-Centered 101

Patient-Centered Complication Patients IT 101

GeriPal

OCTOBER 26, 2023

Summary Transcript Summary Often podcasts meet clinical reality. But rarely does the podcast and clinical reality meet in the same day. The patient’s capacity to make decisions was marginal, and his sons were shouldering much of the responsibility. Dear listeners, if you have a podcast idea, feel free to reach out to us.

Patient-Centered 133

Patient-Centered Hospital Patients IT 133

GeriPal

NOVEMBER 7, 2024

If the purpose of initiating dialysis is improving function – our complex, frail, older patients are likely to be disappointed. Are we seeing people like more older adults, more nursing home patients starting dialysis, and even at a higher gfr? So I wonder if I could turn to either of our nephrologists.

Management 117

Management Patient-Centered Patients IT 117

GeriPal

JUNE 15, 2023

Alex: And joining us via Zoom, we have Charlotta Lindvall, who is a palliative care physician researcher who studies the intersection of natural language processing and communication data at Dana Farber Cancer Institute, where she also works in clinical informatics. Alex: Yeah, that means you could see more patients, right. Eric: Yeah.

IT 100

IT Patient-Centered Patients Healthcare 100

GeriPal

JULY 28, 2022

GeriPal post on “fast food” style palliative care in chronic critical illness. But at that time I was struck by how in that field, there wasn’t a focus or really interest in symptom management and support for patients and their families. Additional links: Editorial on Areej’s study. Palliative care in lung and GI cancers.

Illness 111

Illness Hospital Patient-Centered Patients 111

GeriPal

AUGUST 11, 2022

We talk with Susan about how far the field has come, from early days when the attending physician would decide which patients were DNR and place a black “no code” dot in the chart. – Serious Illness Conversation Guide podcast. There was no conversation with the patient or the family about this. AlexSmithMD . Transcript.

Illness 110

Illness IT Families Family 110

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. Participants were critically ill and intubated. P AI R stands for Palliative and Advanced Illness Research Center.

Patient-Centered 118

Patient-Centered Hospital IT Illness 118

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. . Where does POLST fit in with this debate? This is Eric Widera. Alex: This is Alex Smith.

Illness 73

Illness IT Healthcare Patient-Centered 73

GeriPal

MARCH 28, 2024

Ten years ago we would have been hard pressed to find 3 clinical trial abstracts submitted to the annual meeting, much less high quality randomized trials with robust measures, sample sizes, and analytics plans. And we have Kate Courtright, who’s at University of Pennsylvania, the PAIR Center. They study palliative care.

Consulting 116

Consulting Patient-Centered Patients IT 116

GeriPal

OCTOBER 19, 2023

Caveat as well that RCTs should not be placed on pedestal as the only answer- often patients enrolled in RCTs do not represent real world patients – observational studies do. For a trial to have value, it should not exclude patients over age 80, or those with dementia, or patients residing in nursing homes.

Patient-Centered 127

Patient-Centered IT Patients Illness 127

GeriPal

MAY 22, 2025

Jenny Chen is a palliative care fellow at Yale who regularly sings for her seriously ill patients. Jenny reached out to us because she plays music regularly for her patients, and she said, you should do a podcast about music. And I performed for many palliative patients, and that’s when I started to understand.

IT 98

IT Patient-Centered Patients Board-Certified 98

GeriPal

APRIL 10, 2025

I asked emergency medicine clinicians what they thought when a patient who is seriously ill and DNR comes to the ED, and some responded, (paraphrasing), what are they doing here? Most emergency providers wanted to do the right thing for seriously ill patients, but they didnt have the knowledge, skills, or experience to do it.

Patient-Centered 78

Patient-Centered IT Hospital Patients 78

GeriPal

OCTOBER 12, 2023

Summary Transcript Summary For surgeons and patients, deciding if and when to operate can be challenging. Often, the way surgeons communicate about these decisions doesn’t make things any easier for themselves or their patients. We hope you enjoy this episode. And that’s how we connected.

IT 129

IT Families Family Patient-Centered 129

GeriPal

MAY 25, 2023

Others cited the call from communities to meet them where they are – be they senior centers, Black-owned businesses, or churches (we have a podcast planned in the fall with Fayron Epps and Karen Moss on the church setting). Complicated grief? Did the caregiver feel heard and understood? Did they have PTSD? Depression?

Community 96

Community IT Patient-Centered Primary Care 96

GeriPal

JANUARY 11, 2024

In further contrast to the United States, MAID in Canada is almost entirely administered by a clinician, whereas in the United States patients must self administer. A planned expansion of MAID to include people with mental illness was placed on hold until March 2024. They could have a prognosis of years, or decades.

Illness 144

Illness IT Medical Provider 144

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. Had multiple physical, psychological complications as a result of that.

Patient-Centered 98

Patient-Centered Patients IT Illness 98

GeriPal

DECEMBER 14, 2023

More recently Sharon Kaufman ‘s book And a Time to Die described the ways in which physicians, nurses, hospital systems, and payment mechanisms influenced the hour and manner of patient’s deaths. Liz: Well, some aspects of this paper around clinical momentum and things around defaults and that sort of thing. Proud Mary.

Hospital 126

Hospital IT Patient-Centered Patients 126

GeriPal

FEBRUARY 8, 2024

The illness narratives suffering, healing, and the human condition. I think even the word patient, patient, I think, comes from the word suffer, the one who suffers. I’ve had a patient in one room, they have stage four breast cancer. Hospital Chaplains, Spirituality, and Pain Management: A Qualitative Study.

IT 137

IT Families Family Physicals 137

GeriPal

MARCH 7, 2024

He looked very ill. We are doulas for those with serious illness and those at end-of-life, just a longitudinal relationship, nonmedical support to provide presence. But in the end, I see these as my patients and I’m trying to define what is the right model. My wife is also a physician and she said he’s dying.

Provider 119

Provider Illness IT Healthcare 119