The Medical Futurist

JUNE 21, 2025

Self-care and telemedicine for patients The options of teledermatology services, as well as self-care platforms, are soaring. It is a win-win for everyone: patients do not have to wait in crowded waiting rooms for an exam, while dermatologists can deal with the easier cases in shorter time online.

Patients 111

Patients Healthcare Board-Certified Telemedicine 111

Plum Health

OCTOBER 11, 2024

Your ongoing appointments help foster a strong patient-doctor relationship , making it easier to discuss your concerns and receive personalized care. Choosing the right primary care clinic involves considering several factors, such as clinic locations, healthcare system, and the services offered. What is in a clinic?

Clinic 52

Clinic Primary Care Doctor Primary Care Chronic Condition 52

GeriPal

FEBRUARY 27, 2025

We address: Why is caring for patients with this overlap so hard? Sach Kale set up an outpatient clinic focused on substance use disorder for patients with cancer. Who follows the patient once the cancer goes into remission? I see this in the hospital when I’m doing addiction medicine consults.

Patients 72

Patients Clinic Patient-Centered Illness 72

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 96

IT Patient-Centered Patients Board-Certified 96

GeriPal

FEBRUARY 16, 2023

Summary Transcript Summary Think about the last time a patient yelled at you in anger. Dani and Kery present three steps for interacting with an angry patient: Look within: What is this anger bringing up in me? Ask why: What is underneath the anger for this particular patient? Taking care of the hateful patient.

Patients 109

Patients IT Family Families 109

GeriPal

JULY 21, 2022

I’ve worked in hospital settings as an occupational therapist, inpatient rehab and outpatient rehab. Initially, it was just because there weren’t really answers for my patients. Emmy: I was seeing people in the hospital setting, saying they had had a massive brain injury. How did you get interested in this?

IT 102

IT Family Families Diagnosis 102

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?” That’s a huge amount of news all at once. Lynn: I do.

Family 97

Family Families Patient-Centered IT 97

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. Then, “Keep your hand up if you frequently refer patients with cancer pain to a psychologist?” That rings true to me. All hands go up. All hands go down.

Mental Health 122

Mental Health Patient-Centered Illness Screening 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.

Telehealth 105

Telehealth Patient-Centered IT Patients 105

GeriPal

JUNE 9, 2022

Palliative care, in contrast, saw explosive growth in US hospitals. By diagnosis? They were at the VA, but not so much at our main hub hospital where I trained. I do tend to focus in the hospital setting. That’s just not how the hospital works. Patients have all sorts of problems. By prognosis?

Consulting 99

Consulting Patient-Centered Diagnosis IT 99

GeriPal

OCTOBER 17, 2024

We talk about what is heart failure, particularly HFpEF, how we treat it (including the use of sodium–glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors (SGLT2’s), and how we should apply guidelines to individual patients, especially those with multimorbidity who are taking a lot of other medications. When I see a patient? Matthew, I get the lyrics.

Primary Care 113

Primary Care Patient-Centered IT Patients 113

GeriPal

AUGUST 29, 2024

During the podcast, we reference a newly released second-edition book that our guests published titled “ Navigating Communication with Seriously Ill Patients: Balancing Honesty with Empathy and Hope.” Why did you all decide to write an updated book on navigating communication with serious ill patients? Gordon 02:02 I do.

IT 132

IT Illness Family Families 132

GeriPal

JULY 28, 2022

Alex: And we are also delighted to welcome Areej El-Jawahri, who is an oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital as well, who specializes in blood cancers. 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.

Illness 110

Illness Hospital Patient-Centered Patients 110

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

APRIL 14, 2022

Adapting Palliative Care Skills to Provide Substance Use Disorder Treatment to Patients With Serious Illness . And I remember being there and there was a patient who had seen inpatient and then subsequently outpatient who was so thankful in the weirdest in just this irrational way for having been diagnosed with liver cancer.

Illness 102

Illness Patient-Centered IT Patients 102

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

Doctor On Demand

APRIL 28, 2025

In fact, most sore throat symptoms resolve in three days for 60-70% of patients, according to March 2025 UpToDate, an evidence-based clinical decision support system used by healthcare professionals. Paramedics can provide life-saving treatment on the way to the hospital.

ER 52

ER Telehealth Primary Care Doctor Appointment 52

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? Abby: Thank you.

Family 144

Family Families Patient-Centered IT 144

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

OCTOBER 19, 2023

Certainly SOME of those avoided hospitalizations, CPR, and ICU stays were due to documentation of those orders in the POLST. 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. This is Eric Widera.

Patient-Centered 126

Patient-Centered IT Patients Illness 126

GeriPal

JUNE 30, 2022

You have a patient with dementia severe enough that she cannot recognize relatives. A huge part of this decision rests on (1) her previously stated wishes, values, and goals (prior to the onset of dementia); and (2) the outcomes of surgery for patients with dementia. Alex: And the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Transcript.

Patient-Centered 101

Patient-Centered Complication Patients IT 101

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. And so, let’s help them.

Illness 136

Illness Patient-Centered Screening IT 136

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. I did it before and this guy, he was 85, but he was climbing Mount Everest.”

IT 128

IT Family Families Patient-Centered 128

GeriPal

FEBRUARY 9, 2023

For example, we spend the first half talking about a RCT simulation study of clinician verbal and non-verbal communication with a seriously ill patient with cancer. In one room the physician under study interacts with a white patient-actor, and in another room interacts with a Black patient-actor. Eric: Yeah.

Patient-Centered 111

Patient-Centered Patients IT Healthcare 111

GeriPal

AUGUST 25, 2022

Second, Hospice was originally designed for patients with advanced cancer, but the fastest growing admitting diagnosis is dementia. Krista Harrison found , to her surprise, that caregivers of people with dementia who died rated hospice as well as similar patients without dementia who died on hospice. AlexSmithMD. Transcript.

Family 106

Family Families IT Patients 106

GeriPal

FEBRUARY 17, 2022

I tell this story because these issues don’t typically register as more than a nuisance for clinicians, who frequently don’t understand why their older patient with osteoporosis is not taking a bisphosphonate. But our patients are walking with their feet, and adherence to bisphosphonates for osteoporosis is poor and decreases with time.

Clinic 67

Clinic IT Patients Medical 67

GeriPal

MAY 4, 2023

But when I have, I find that they’re often some of the hardest patients to care for. I just had this experience where in the space I was in, very few people believed that this was even a legit thing to study and certainly that it would make a difference for the patients we cared for.

IT 83

IT Family Families Illness 83

GeriPal

SEPTEMBER 1, 2022

So I’m going to last longer in my position and I’m going to seek opportunities to grow and to help families and patients more and more. We’re just like, “Okay, I see this patient has a need. For example, there was one time when a patient had hiccups, it was like, “I don’t know what to do about this.”

IT 102

IT Family Families Clinic 102

GeriPal

MAY 9, 2024

Matt Tyler (aka Pallidad for those on Twitter ): Matt is the Hospice and Palliative care doctor who created How To Train Your Doctor , which helps patients living with serious illness find tips on “owning” their healthcare plan on his Instagram and YouTube pages. He was also the one who we have to thank for suggesting this podcast!

Education 127

Education IT Illness Healthcare 127

GeriPal

AUGUST 31, 2023

Alex: She’s also associate professor at Massachusetts General Hospital in Harvard Medical School. This sort of stands in the face of what you and I learned in palliative care that illness is an opportunity for spiritual growth and transformation from what we have strived towards in caring for many of our patients. Alex: Lund.

Illness 128

Illness IT Diagnose Medical 128

GeriPal

JUNE 22, 2023

Healthcare staff were afraid of patients with HIV because there wasn’t clarity on how it was transmitted. So if healthcare staff are concerned, custodial staff are concerned, the other incarcerated people. When they built a new prison hospital in Stockton, the dialysis went there. And then they entered. Eric: Great.

Family 132

Family Families IT Community 132

GeriPal

DECEMBER 19, 2024

A NY Times article titled Should Patients Be Allowed to Die From Anorexia ? This is a unique opportunity to join UCSFs vibrant and renowned faculty, teach and mentor future doctors, and make a lasting impact at one of the nations leading safety-net hospitals. We don’t have a way of operationalizing which patients qualify.

Illness 101

Illness Mental Health IT Patient-Centered 101

BMJ

MAY 10, 2022

Two hundred seventy-six of the healthcare professionals were reached (response rate: 85.4%). COVID-19 diagnosis of self Yes 24 (44.4) COVID-19 diagnosis of a relative Yes 98 (46.4) COVID-19 diagnosis of self Yes 24 (44.4) COVID-19 diagnosis of a relative Yes 98 (46.4) 150 (54.3) 126 (45.7)

Vaccination 40

Vaccination Healthcare Professional Healthcare Primary Care 40

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. And importantly the patient has to have capacity and they have to be able to take the drug themselves. So being well and also potentially periods of dying. Eric: Yeah.

Illness 144

Illness IT Medical Provider 144

FDA Law

JANUARY 18, 2024

Comparators drugs heroin (schedule I), oxycodone and cocaine (schedule II) were in the highest rankings. HHS conducted a two-part test to determine whether marijuana has a currently accepted medical use in the U.S.

Medical 69

Medical Physicals IT Healthcare Professional 69

GeriPal

MAY 12, 2022

I mean, just such struggles around corruption in hospitals, access to opioid pain medication, and you almost had to wait until a friend of yours was in power, so you could have access, get permission. It’s easier to concentrate on cure, diagnosis, cure. People who are suffering are not very visible. They shared their experiences.

Community 115

Community IT Relationship Healthcare 115

GeriPal

OCTOBER 27, 2022

As Alex Lee says on our podcast today, all prognostic models will be wrong (in some circumstances and for some patients); our job is to make prognostic models that are clinically useful. I think this is a really difficult topic to talk about with patients. She has a point. Prognosis is inherently uncertain.

IT 95

IT Clinic Screening Patients 95