May 25, 2021 by Melissa C Palmer, LCSW, ACHP-SW, APHSW-C, JD

I wanted to share a powerful commencement ceremony speech by my dear friend, Dimple Dhabalia. Dimple reminds me of how I want to strive to live my life every day. Although she is not working in healthcare, her message of choosing to “live above the line” inspires me to be a role model for acceptance and kindness in the world.

May 18, 2021 by F. Amos Bailey, MD

Recently I visited a patient who was recovering from major surgery. She was terrified. Apparently, all night she had thought someone was trying to kill her. She was concerned that the staff might poison her and was reluctant to take her medicine.

May 11, 2021 by F. Amos Bailey, MD

Blood and bleeding are scary and overwhelming. There is a reason that blood features prominently in horror movies. Now imagine that it is you bleeding, or someone you know and love, that you are caring for. The bleeding starts and you are helpless to stop it.

May 4, 2021 by Nancy Robertson, DNP

She looked at me incredulously. “What do you mean you use intuition to lead difficult conversations?”, she gasped. Her response pulled me up short. I forgot that I was mentoring a nurse practitioner student who was currently living in the world of academia. She was shoving as many facts, guidelines, and protocols into her head as she could manage. And if she couldn’t immediately recall necessary algorithms, she had apps on her phone she could quickly consult. She had come to learn that decisions to any patient dilemma are found in expert informed, evidence-based guidelines outside of herself.

Apr 27, 2021 by Melissa C Palmer, LCSW, ACHP-SW, APHSW-C, JD

A clean bill of health. The cancer is gone. Next check up in a year. Your transplant surgery is a success. These are the words all people living with cancer or transplant long to hear. The new goal is getting back to “normal”. The thing is, most of the time, returning to the way things were before diagnosis is not an option. After the initial euphoria of realizing “I beat cancer!” or “I got the transplant!”, survivors have to re-learn how to live and adapt to the fantastic and not so great aspects of life after a serious illness.

Apr 20, 2021 by Michelle Moon, DO

If a child has a lifespan limiting condition, treatment options diminish over time and life gets even more complicated. Sometimes, parents have to make what seems like impossible decisions. The answers can usually be found by following the child’s lead -- but what does this mean?

Apr 13, 2021 by Michelle Moon, DO

Eighty percent of children receiving palliative care depend on some sort of medical technology, so one major role of pediatric palliative care providers is to help guide decisions around these devices. To do this, it’s important to know the real-life implications of devices like feeding tubes and tracheostomy. This video explores this, and some of the things that influence parents’ decisions.

Apr 6, 2021 by Michelle Moon, DO

Minimizing regret is one of the holy grails of parenting a child with a lifespan limiting illness. We need to know that we’ve been the best parent possible – but what does that mean?

Mar 30, 2021 by Michelle Moon, DO

During my daughter’s hospitalizations for respiratory failure, her heart rate was routinely in the 120’s and 130’s. Her medical team told me that it was an indication of how sick she was, and that the heart rate itself did not need to be treated. They had to remind me of this again and again, because the non-pediatrician in me wanted to push beta blockers.

Mar 23, 2021 by Michelle Moon, DO

It is the rare -- like, unicorn rare -- physician who feels completely comfortable with both pediatric and adult medicine. Most of us figure out early on which camp we’re in and have no need (or desire) to cross over.

Mar 16, 2021 by Melissa C Palmer, LCSW, ACHP-SW, APHSW-C, JD

Traumatic events affect us on a psychological and physical, cellular level. During widespread disasters like the pandemic, patients and healthcare providers cope best when they have interventions based on both crisis and ongoing psychosocial needs. Palliative care community specialists are primed to be able to provide the type of transdisciplinary interventions that are closely aligned to trauma-informed care.

Mar 9, 2021 by F. Amos Bailey, MD

This situation is: Unjust and unwise A Global Vaccination Plan Possible​ Two pokes or one jab Protects me and you and you From COVID’s dread​

Mar 2, 2021 by F. Amos Bailey, MD

If you’re interested in space exploration or watched the movie Apollo 13, you probably have heard the phrase “Houston, we have a problem.” Astronaut Jim Swigert reports in an understated way, that there has been an explosion on the spacecraft while on the way to the Moon. Subsequently, the world followed breathlessly, while we waited to see if NASA engineers would be able to bring them home safe. Ultimately, they do make it home, but only because they worked together as a team, trusted each other, and considered all potential solutions

Feb 23, 2021 by Nicole Thurston

One of our new projects this year has been the Community-based Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship that is linked with our MS in Palliative Care. The Fellows participate in a Journal Club activity in which they find an article present in a format like PC-Facts. We will be sharing one of these presentations monthly. This month Nicole Thurston MD reviews an article on patient experience in using the Open Notes, which allows patients to have easy access to their provider's notes on their visits to a Cancer Center. While transparency is important availability to patients and families in distress will be needed. Read more here.

Feb 16, 2021 by Kelly Arora, PhD

Palliative care can improve quality of life, alleviate troublesome symptoms, and ensure that health care is consistent with patient and family caregiver goals and preferences. Yet not everyone understands what palliative care is or seeks it out when it could help them. This is particularly true for older African Americans living with chronic health conditions, many of whom express embedded distrust of the healthcare system because of past injustices and ongoing disparities.

Feb 9, 2021 by Melissa C Palmer, LCSW, ACHP-SW, APHSW-C, JD

These days, it’s a challenge to dig deep when healthcare workers hear of those who refuse to wear masks, those who feel the pandemic is a hoax, those who purposely destroy a shipment of the already precious coronavirus vaccine. Social media has created an even greater schism between people with different opinions, and inaccurate news is a common occurrence to market fear and separation. We often see that our patients who are homebound and suffering have limited access and interaction to the outside world and a great portion of their time may be spent in front of the television or electronic devices.

Feb 2, 2021 by F. Amos Bailey, MD

Health equity and multiple inequities have been in the news this last year. We can’t even be more equitable about the vaccine distribution. Until the healthcare provider workforce starts to look more like the people they are entrusted in caring for, it will be difficult to make progress.

Jan 26, 2021 by F. Amos Bailey, MD

Lionel had lung cancer. It involved most of his right lung. He was short of breath, anxious, overwhelmed. After nearly a week in the Palliative Care Unit, with careful titration of his medications, including morphine for his pain and treatment for anxiety, he was ready to try home. I was not optimistic.

Jan 19, 2021 by F. Amos Bailey, MD

I started making house calls or home visits on home hospice patients in 1989. This was the year that a group in our rural community opened a hospice program and they asked me, the new doctor in the county, to be the “volunteer’ Medical Director. A few months later one of our new patients was insistent that I come to see her. I did.

Jan 12, 2021 by Melissa C Palmer, LCSW, ACHP-SW, APHSW-C, JD

When I received the notification that I was eligible for my first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine (to prevent SARS-CoV-2), I felt ambivalent. I should be ecstatic to be one of the first people in the US to be able to receive expected immunity from the virus that has taken so many lives and turned our world on its side for the past year. But I asked myself, why am I able to get it first?