PEMBlog

SEPTEMBER 13, 2023

Team members and families eagerly await your intervention to halt the seizure and understand its underlying cause. A careful history and physical examination are ways that we as providers can “see what’s going on inside the head.” ” Explaining this to families is paramount – sometimes your exam is a test.

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Patients Screening Illness Physicals 52

GeriPal

MAY 5, 2022

We talk with Nick and Meg about: Why hearing loss is important not just in geriatrics but also for those caring for seriously ill individuals. And one of the parts of that was actually doing physicals for the students and putting them in job placements. My own work focuses on hospitalization and health utilization over time.

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IT Screening Hospital Clinic 102

GeriPal

JUNE 8, 2023

Should we use Ozempic (if we can find it) in patients with serious illness, which often results in undesirable and profound weight loss? So my background clinically is working with cancer patients and families and those who underwent bone marrow transplant, and a lot of times for their treatment regimen, it includes steroids.

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Diabetes Management Patient-Centered Family 73

Mere Mortal MD

MAY 22, 2025

People are not usually fond of hospitals, especially if they happen to be the patient. A hospital is a place for sick people, a place where death lurks around the corner, where a blood sucking phlebotomist pokes around your veins after strapping a blue rubber band tightly around your upper arm. Thanks for reading Mere Mortal MD!

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Hospital Patients Nurse Practitioner IT 221

StorytellERdoc

MARCH 18, 2020

Gone are the carefree smiles, the uncomplicated daily lives, and the thought that we and our families are immune to unexpected death. Friends and family have asked me my thoughts on Covid-19, maybe believing I have some special information simply from being on the front lines. Please let us focus on the critically ill.

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ER Illness Physicals Provider 100

Physician's Weekly

JUNE 12, 2025

As climate change increases in certain pediatric illnesses like asthma, pediatricians have a role in caring for children, especially in vulnerable communities. Climate-related illnesses disproportionally affect children in the global south and those who experience structural marginalization due to racism and poverty.

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Asthma Mental Health Illness Chronic Disease 52

GeriPal

SEPTEMBER 22, 2022

And in response, the family or patient looked at you like you were from another planet? Coming off as rote and scripted during a serious illness conversation can have a similar off-putting impact on patients and families. Links: – Uncanny Valley post on Josh’s fantastic substack Notes from a Family Meeting.

Illness 101

Illness IT Patient-Centered Patients 101

The Clinical Problem Solvers

MAY 2, 2022

Dr. Valtis is a 4th year Med-Peds Resident at Brigham & Women’s Hospital and Boston Children’s Hospital, and his research focuses on race and the utilization of security responses in the inpatient hospital setting. Yannis Valtis, Ebi Okah, and Carine Davila, about research in their respective fields.

Healthcare 52

Healthcare Utilities Hospital Internal Medicine 52

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

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?

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Illness IT Patient-Centered Family 136

Noreta Family Medicine

APRIL 17, 2024

What is the meaning of Family Medicine? As the name suggests, a family physician can take care of your entire family – from the day of your birth (even before!) I love family medicine because as family physicians, we can be trained to provide care for patients in many different settings. What is primary care?

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Primary Care Board-Certified GP Family Medicine 52

GeriPal

AUGUST 29, 2024

Summary Transcript CME Summary Serious illness communication is hard. 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.” Eric 01:42 So we’ ve got an exciting topic today.

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IT Illness Family Families 132

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? For more details, please click here. (AP AP Recruit Job No.

Illness 101

Illness Mental Health IT Patient-Centered 101

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. Alex 24:58 I’m so glad you mentioned the family. There’s something.

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Illness Patient-Centered Patients IT 133

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?”

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Patient-Centered Illness Healthcare IT 115

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. But rarely does the podcast and clinical reality meet in the same day. Therapists are so much more. Ann, welcome to the GeriPal podcast.

Patient-Centered 132

Patient-Centered Hospital Patients IT 132

GeriPal

JULY 28, 2022

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

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Illness Hospital Patient-Centered Patients 110

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. We had tried to actually select people who didn’t have a serious illness. Marian: Thank you.

Illness 101

Illness Patient-Centered IT Nurse Practitioner 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. Eric: Yeah.

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Mental Health Patient-Centered Illness Screening 122

GeriPal

JULY 21, 2022

Often the work of the certified driving rehab specialist is to assess the older drivers goals, assess prognosis for driving, and help the family navigate discussions around driving cessation (hmmm…sounds like an approach to family meetings). Love to talk about also in the serious illness population. “Do you guys do this?”

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Family Families IT Diagnosis 102

GeriPal

DECEMBER 15, 2022

So I think as palliative care clinicians, we use narrative as we try to understand more about the persons that we’re caring for and their families. Been in the hospital four times, vented, been told the story to her family, she won’t live. Tell me about your illness. How did you get into this? Heather: Sure.

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IT Patient-Centered Healthcare Illness 105

GeriPal

FEBRUARY 8, 2024

Hospital Chaplains, Spirituality, and Pain Management: A Qualitative Study. The illness narratives suffering, healing, and the human condition. I mean, to me, the Buddhist concept that there are multiple forms of suffering, like there’s the suffering that’s due to pain and physical symptoms. Pain Manag Nurs.

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IT Family Families Physicals 137

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.

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IT Family Families Illness 83

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? Just encourage patients and families to bring music into their healthcare experience.

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IT Patient-Centered Patients Board-Certified 96

GeriPal

JUNE 9, 2022

Palliative care, in contrast, saw explosive growth in US hospitals. We can’t possibly meet the needs of all people with newly diagnosed serious illness. She’s also a member of the PAIR Center, which stands for Palliative Advanced Illness Research Center. When should people get palliative care? What is a pragmatic trial ?

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Consulting Patient-Centered Diagnosis Referral 99

GeriPal

MAY 9, 2024

all of whom focus their efforts on educating the general public about living and dying with a serious illness. Alex: And Sammy Winemaker, who’s a palliative care physician and Associate Clinical Professor at McMaster University in the Department of Family Medicine, Division of Palliative Care. Sammy: Thank you so much.

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Education IT Illness Healthcare 127

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.

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IT Hospital Patients Illness 145

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!

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Telehealth Patient-Centered IT Patients 105

GeriPal

JUNE 22, 2023

But now we have older people dying of older people illnesses. We really like the community doctors to know, so those of you listening, that our patients, they’ve lost their physical freedom, but they have autonomy in terms of their medical decision-making just like anybody else. The person didn’t believe in the medications.

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Family Families IT Community 132

GeriPal

OCTOBER 12, 2023

” Somehow, there’s this signal that the patients and families had to pick up that maybe the surgeon wasn’t so enthusiastic, or if I just dump risk on them, maybe they’ll say, “I don’t want this.” What I need to navigate with that patient and their family, is it valuable to you? Every time.

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IT Family Families Patient-Centered 128

GeriPal

JANUARY 11, 2024

To be eligible in Canada patients must have a “ grievous and irremediable ” condition, including disability ; they do not have to have a terminal illness with a prognosis of less than 6 months. A planned expansion of MAID to include people with mental illness was placed on hold until March 2024. But that was separate from MAID.

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Illness IT Medical Provider 144

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? I was trained in the hospital where it started, and we were trained to be bedside nurses. by Kearney. Lovely to be here.

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IT Patient-Centered Family Families 104

GeriPal

JULY 11, 2024

We get a bit of, in the veteran population, kind of a mix of a lot of mental health issues thrown into these comorbid illnesses, including cirrhosis, but it’s usually the decompensated cirrhotics or the folks with liver cancer and cirrhosis, or one of both. I’m embedded in the ICU in one of our smaller hospitals.

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Patient-Centered IT Patients Clinic 109

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.

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Healthcare IT Community Illness 100

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. What she called total pain, physical, psychosocial, and spiritual, and she started addressing it. They shared their experiences.

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Community IT Relationship Healthcare 115

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?

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Patient-Centered Patients IT Hospital 96

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?

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IT Patient-Centered Patients Healthcare 99