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Family dynamics and doctors' emotions drive useless end-of-life care, says study

Medical Xpress

Researchers from Rutgers and other universities have developed a behavioral model that explains a long-standing health care mystery: Why do so many terminally ill patients undergo intense last-ditch treatments with little chance of meaningful life extension?

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Why is working with adolescents and young adults so hard? Abby Rosenberg, Nick Purol, Daniel Eison, & Andrea Thach

GeriPal

There’s all this stuff that we’re supposed to be doing at that stage of life and then you add the complexity of the serious illness. It is really difficult for the patients and the families. Young adulthood is super hard. Daniel, does that play a role as far as… I have a 14-year-old son. Thoughts on that?

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Surrogate Decision Making: Bernie Lo and Laurie Dornbrand

GeriPal

If they didn’t do it all by themselves, they talked to the family and it was a conversation, but also there wasn’t a whole lot that doctors can do then. What words to use? Is the POLST useful? Under what circumstances? Should we abandon the term, “comfort measures?” Bernie: Well, there was a time when doctors made these decisions.

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The Angry Patient: A podcast with Dani Chammas and Keri Brenner

GeriPal

The last time this happened to me I immediately went on the defensive despite years of training in serious illness communication skills. What feelings do we have toward the patient and toward their families? And here’s an incredibly angry family member. How did you react? Afterwards, I thought there must be a better way.

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RCT of Chaplaincy: Lexy Torke, Karen Steinhauser, LaVera Crawley

GeriPal

That’s why we use the terms assessment and intervention and we think of assessment as a skill of a very advanced skill that chaplains have of doing an in-depth evaluation of a patient or family member, and then the interventions should certainly follow naturally from that. LaVera: I trained at UCSF in family medicine.

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