Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Catch up on old episodes! “Suppose you’re getting ready to send your young adult off to college for the first time. In that case, you’ve likely been spending the summer getting college dorm and apartment essen…
Category: Palliative care
What being a hospice volunteer taught me about health care
The finality of death is a powerful teacher. For some patients, being diagnosed with a terminal illness is an experience that lends a tremendous shift in perspective and newfound authenticity. This can be instructive to them and the people around them….
Lessons in avoiding compassion fatigue
An excerpt from A Caregiver’s Love Story. Caregiver burnout is a real and serious problem for those caregivers in for the long haul. It is a serious issue if you go to bed each night in anguish over the next day’s chores and wake up each mo…
Giving language to empathy: lessons from palliative care [PODCAST]
Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Catch up on old episodes! “The value of empathy in medicine is seldom debated. Just as the art of medicine is taught as the balance of knowledge and application, so has empathy been recognized as both a value …
Giving language to empathy: lessons from palliative care
The value of empathy in medicine is seldom debated. Just as the art of medicine is taught as the balance of knowledge and application, so has empathy been recognized as both a value to be fostered and a skill to be learned. Medical curricula have refle…
Next of kin in the medical decision making process
Four years ago, as chairman of the hospital ethics committee, I was asked to convene an emergency meeting brought by a distraught family as medical decisions had to be made for their ill loved one. The hospital, HMO lawyers, the family, three adult chi…
The elephant in the room: end-of-life discussion with patients
I have been at my current hospital for 12-plus years now. Like many of you, I have gotten to know some of my patients very well. I have known some of them since I first started out here. We talk about my dogs and cows, our newest grandkids, and politic…
Making death conversations fun!
“Arriving at an acceptance of one’s mortality is a process, not an epiphany.” – Atul Gawande Imagine a group of old (mature) friends gathered for a “girls” weekend in balmy Florida. The friendships started in grammar…
Death is what gives life meaning
“He knew it was his time a month ago. We were sitting at the kitchen table, and he told me he couldn’t feel half his face. He kept tapping the left side and saying he couldn’t feel anything. I knew he had a stroke because my daughter …
A patient gave this physician her humanity back
I am a physician. We are always taught to see our patients as more than their state of illness or diagnosis. “Speak to the patient,” “listen,” “look them in the eye,” “do not put one foot out the door,” t…
