Physician's Weekly

JUNE 24, 2025

On June 9, Kennedy fired a panel of scientific advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and later replaced them with some who have been skeptical of vaccines. “Season in and season out,” Schaffner said, “it produces outbreaks of serious respiratory illness that rivals influenza.” Kennedy Jr.,

Vaccination 52

Vaccination Illness Hospital Patient-Centered 52

Annals of Family Medicine

NOVEMBER 20, 2024

Context: The COVID pandemic disrupted global healthcare, impacting academic medical centers (AMCs) in the United States, necessitating a comprehensive understanding of its effects on healthcare delivery and utilization. Study Design: This retrospective case series analysis utilizes Vizient’s clinical database data.

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Healthcare Utilities Patient-Centered Illness 130

Plum Health

OCTOBER 6, 2024

In recent years, one of the most intriguing shifts has been the rise of concierge medicine—a model that’s redefining how patients interact with their healthcare providers. A concierge doctor checking the medicine for the patients." The answer lies in their approach to patient care. What is Concierge Medicine? "A

Healthcare 52

Healthcare Appointment Chronic Condition Patient-Centered 52

GeriPal

JULY 27, 2023

For those with serious illness, sleep problems and insomnia are all too common. Alex: And we have Cathy Alessi, who is a geriatrician, Director of the Geriatrics Research Education and Clinical Care Center at the VA, greater Los Angeles and Professor of Medicine at UCLA. Sleep is a focus of your academic and clinical career.

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Illness IT Clinic Medical 85

PEMBlog

MAY 1, 2025

In this episode, we tackle the clinical mischief of Parvovirus B19 , a common viral infection with a surprisingly wide range of manifestationsfrom the classic slapped cheek rash of erythema infectiosum to aplastic crises in children with hemolytic anemias and fetal hydrops in pregnant contacts. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Complication Patient-Centered Patients Clinic 83

GeriPal

DECEMBER 2, 2022

She directs UCSF MERI’s patient, family, and clinician support with classes and consultation on resiliency, well-being, and grief. You wrote about how when it comes to talking about patients with dementia, they’re rarely portrayed as resilient. Alex: First three words would be, family and history and diversity.

Community 101

Community IT Individual Patient-Centered 101

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?

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Diabetes Management Patient-Centered Family 73

GeriPal

AUGUST 4, 2022

My take home from this is that while the most preferred explanation for deprescribing statins and sedative-hypnotics is one focused on the risk of side effects, we also need to individualize it to the patient and the medication that they are taking. But how to talk to patients about the risk and benefits when starting. Welcome, Ariel.

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Specialization Medical Patient-Centered Provider 104

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.

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Diagnosis Management IT Patient-Centered 52

Annals of Family Medicine

NOVEMBER 20, 2024

Context Palliative medicine focuses on quality of life for patients with serious illnesses. Historically, palliative care has been predominantly provided in the inpatient setting, but there is a growing awareness that patients may also benefit from outpatient care. Results The patients in the SMC had a mean age of 71.

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Patients Diagnosis Patient-Centered Utilities 130

Pamela Wible MD

JULY 2, 2025

How to protect your medical license, your freedom, and your patients A physician called me just hours before her sentencing for opioid diversion. Here are 11 unforgettable cases involving my friends & family—with hard lessons learned. At $30 per patient, she earned $33,000 over one year before moving on. She declined.

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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 129

Illness IT Diagnosis Patient-Centered 129

GeriPal

JANUARY 18, 2024

We start off the conversation by talking about whether patients with cancer and cancer pain are really that different, and their paper that was just published on January 11 th in JAMA Oncology showing that substance use disorder is not uncommon in individuals with cancer. Who do we have with us today?

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Illness Patient-Centered Screening Clinic 136

GeriPal

APRIL 14, 2022

On today’s podcast we talk with three experts on buprenorphine on why, when, and how to use it in serious illness. Adapting Palliative Care Skills to Provide Substance Use Disorder Treatment to Patients With Serious Illness . Katie, before we jump into the topic of buprenorphine in serious illness, what’s the song request?

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Illness Patient-Centered IT Patients 102

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.

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Illness IT Patient-Centered Patients 125

GeriPal

SEPTEMBER 22, 2022

Have you ever had that moment when talking to a patient, when you realized that the phrase you just uttered, which you’ve uttered a hundred times before, came out rote and scripted? And in response, the family or patient looked at you like you were from another planet? Summary Transcript Summary. Yeah, I’ve been there too.

Illness 101

Illness IT Patient-Centered Patients 101

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.

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Patient-Centered IT Illness Patients 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. But watch out! Travel time can leave this champ vulnerable to fatigue and no-shows.

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Telehealth Patient-Centered IT Patients 105

GeriPal

DECEMBER 8, 2022

Clinicians “catching” patient life stories. . Our patients aren’t “the 76 year old with heart failure in room 202,” as Heather Coats astutely noted. Our loves, our triumphs, our failures, our work, our families. . Storytelling Helps Hospital Staff Discover The Person Within The Patient. What’s in a story? Bennett, C.R.,

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Patient-Centered Illness Healthcare IT 115

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 133

Illness Patient-Centered Patients IT 133

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. So I first want to just say thank you to Ernesto’s family. 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

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.

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Family Families Patient-Centered IT 144

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?” Anne Kelly: Hi there. Nice to be here. Lynn: I do.

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Family Families Patient-Centered IT 97

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.

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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 101

Illness Mental Health IT Patient-Centered 101

GeriPal

FEBRUARY 22, 2024

As she said, when you think about the hardest patients you’ve cared for, in nearly all cases there was some aspect of psychological illness involved. Today we talk with two psychologists who are deeply invested in addressing psychological aspects of care for people living with serious illness. That rings true to me.

Mental Health 122

Mental Health Patient-Centered Illness Screening 122

GeriPal

DECEMBER 15, 2022

Along the way we address: Is this degree of slowed cognitive decline meaningful to patients or care partners? Eric: So patient narrative storytelling, independent of what we call it, I’d like to turn to both of you and just how you got interested in this as a subject. What about the burdens, risks, and harms? Heather: Sure.

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IT Patient-Centered Healthcare Illness 105

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. And I was asking this patient about if he had filled out an advanced directive. Is the patient in your descriptor?

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Patient-Centered IT Patients Healthcare 109

FDA Law

MARCH 13, 2023

Valentine — Incorporating patient and caregiver experiences into every phase of drug development has become increasingly prioritized during both development and review ( see, e.g. , previous coverage here ). By Larry J. Bauer, Senior Regulatory Drug Expert & James E.

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Patients Patient-Centered Family Families 98

Plum Health

OCTOBER 16, 2024

Michigan residents have been buzzing about a primary care clinic that’s setting a new standard for healthcare across the state. Whether you’re in Detroit , Corunna , Lansing , Royal Oak , or Van Buren , this clinic is offering comprehensive care that puts patient well-being first. What Makes This Medical Clinic Different?

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Clinic Chronic Disease Management Primary Care Medical 52

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 109

Patient-Centered IT Patients Clinic 109

GeriPal

OCTOBER 6, 2022

Earlier this year palliative care was the correct response to the following clue on the game show Jeopardy: From a Latin word for “to cloak”, it’s the type of care given to seriously ill patients to provide comfort without curing. Why is this different from clinical communication skills? Transcript. Marian: Thank you.

Illness 101

Illness Patient-Centered IT Nurse Practitioner 101

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?

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Consulting Patient-Centered Diagnosis Referral 99

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.

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Patient-Centered Hospital Patients IT 132

GeriPal

JULY 28, 2022

GeriPal post on “fast food” style palliative care in chronic critical illness. This is my early father’s day gift from the family. 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. Transcript.

Illness 110

Illness Hospital Patient-Centered Patients 110

GeriPal

APRIL 4, 2024

The Cruzan ruling led to a flood of interest in Advance Directives, and eventually to the Patient Self Determination Act, which mandates provision of information about advanced directives to all hospitalized patients. Other states set lower bars, including oral assignment of surrogate decision-makers. What words to use?

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Family Families Patient-Centered IT 112

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.

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IT Patient-Centered Patients Healthcare 99