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My Homage to Palliative Care

Isabelle Schupak January 23, 2024 6 Comments

As a medical resident, I found there was something about working on the hospice unit that gave me the urge to wander, to slow down; to put away my stethoscope and truly connect with those around me.

Perhaps it was the peaceful, almost hypnotic melodies of the in-house pianist lulling me in a trance-like state, awakening my curiosity. Her music floated sweetly through the halls, following my path as I drifted, lost in reflection. Perhaps it was the towering windows looking out on the lush garden; on many afternoons, I’d gaze through their panes, watching the soothing winter downpour. It was my own personal sanctuary amid the pervasive atmosphere of grief and loss that hung over all.

Daring to Dream

Colette Charles December 9, 2022 7 Comments

For the past three years, I worked as a rural primary-care doctor. Two months ago, I resigned to pursue further training in hospice and palliative care. My patients were the inspiration that illuminated every step of my way towards this new path.

Marly came to me for a workup of her persistently elevated liver enzymes. Together, we navigated her new diagnosis—liver cancer—and a series of failed treatments. Eventually, Marly’s thoughts turned to facing her mortality.

Holiday Concert

Wynne Morrison December 20, 2019 4 Comments

The door opens, we pause again.
Voices singing in the lobby drown out
her parents and the specialists alike.
I think they added bells this year,
the cheerful carols carefully chosen
to celebrate the season, not a faith.
A guitar picks up a riff, the same
one my daughter played so long ago
in her one embarrassed solo
on the school stage. A song both
fitting and ironic, about keeping up
the fight. Down the hall, their daughter
listens to the voices rise and fall.
The doors open, and the doors close.

Native Ways

Jan Jahner November 24, 2017 7 Comments

Jan Jahner ~

They came up from the center of the earth, The People
where sky speaks to corn,
speaks to cottonwoods, to runoff in the wash.
Living beneath black-slashed canyon walls
home to sheep and weavers.
He is one of them, my patient
one of the ancients; leathery face carved and quiet
she is his daughter, fingers on the covers,
ready should he wake.

He is dying and we can’t say it.
Soft sounds unknown to me, their language of wind, cottonwood and wool
in the center of this circle is knowing and not saying
the medicines continue
but we turn, bathe, suction and weave the fibers close.

She Likes Chocolate

Nadine Semer November 17, 2017 4 Comments

Nadine Semer ~

“She doesn’t like vanilla,” Mr. Wyatt says, staring at the nutritional drinks sitting on his wife’s bedside hospital table. 

I’m here as the palliative-medicine consultant. As my resident Susan and I stand still, taken aback, Susan’s expression says it all: She’s dying, and her husband is worried about which flavors she likes?

Mrs. Wyatt, fifty-six, came to our urban hospital’s emergency room with abdominal pain. She was admitted and given intravenous fluids and broad-spectrum antibiotics. Her workup revealed widespread, untreatable cancer. Her medical team has consulted us because they’re frustrated at her family’s unwillingness to acknowledge that she’s failing.

“Explained her poor prognosis; she needs to be DNR,” read the consult request. “But still, the family wants everything

Going Through the Grits

Scott Newport December 30, 2016 9 Comments

Scott Newport

It was another day at a renovation project on the fourth floor of an office building. Glancing at my iPhone, I noticed that my buddy Dave had called a couple of times. Now, coming down a stepladder for what seemed like the hundredth time, I saw his name pop up again. This time I set down my hammer and found a quiet place.

“Hey Scott, ol’ buddy, I got a request,” Dave said. “Last week at hunting camp, a friend of mine was impressed with my restored knife. As we were sitting around the campfire, I told him that you’re kind of a blacksmith, and that you refurbish knives. I wonder if you could fix up his, too. He lent it

Hope in a Hopeless Place

Paula Mahon December 25, 2016 No Comments

In 2008 my father was committed to a long-term care facility, and our family visited him daily. We testified to the nursing home staff of the funny, smart, kind and generous man he once was.

Race in the Advance Directives Conversation

Henry Schneiderman July 29, 2016 2 Comments

Much of my work as a Palliative Care physician involves conversations with patients and their families for whom the medical outlook is bleak: to help them receive the treatment they want, not more and not less. Such discussions are best held in tandem with the primary medical team and with the nurse. Many times, both attending doctors and housestaff have said, “But it’s so much harder to get a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate Order) with African-American families.”

My experience differs.

A Doctor’s Dilemma

Jessica Zitter September 12, 2014 12 Comments

Jessica Zitter

It was my first day at my new job, practicing a new specialty. Having spent fourteen years as an ICU physician–including a four-year pulmonary/critical-care fellowship in this very hospital–I had just completed a palliative-care fellowship. Now I was the hospital’s palliative-care consult attending.

When I set eyes on the patient in room 1407, my first thought was: THIS LADY NEEDS TO BE INTUBATED–STAT!

The only trouble was that my job was to ease this patient’s passing, not to prolong her life.

The team had told me that Mrs. Zelnick, an eighty-two-year-old widow, was dying from pneumonia and didn’t want to be put on life support.

A Different Kind of Miracle

Anita Fry October 11, 2013 6 Comments

Anita Fry

Once upon a time, I was a newspaper journalist: I chased down sources and sweated over deadlines. Then, in mid-career, I switched to doing marketing and communications for a regional healthcare system. This consisted of a large hospital and many outpatient clinics, including a community cancer center.

Because I handled communications work for the cancer center, I also had a seat on the Cancer Committee–an oversight group of oncologists, pathologists, nurses and other specialists, who met quarterly.

I found these gatherings a bit intimidating. My fellow members were welcoming, but they spoke almost entirely in acronyms and medical jargon–“OCNs,” “PET/CTs,” “staging,” “linear accelerators.”

Mementos and Memories

Paul Rousseau July 15, 2011 No Comments

Paul Rousseau

Delores sits tilted to the right in a worn wheelchair, a curtain separating her from a sleeping roommate.

She is wearing a blue blouse stained with something orange, perhaps Jell-O, and white pants and white socks. A worn gold wedding band adorns the fourth finger of her left hand. Her hair is a shiny gray, perfectly coiffed, and her face is etched with deep wrinkles, a testament to eighty-nine years of life.

A tiny bedside shelf displays two faded black-and-white photos from the 1930s or ’40s: one is of Delores in her twenties, a demure smile on her face; the other shows Delores with a young man

Failure to Thrive

Daniel Becker May 22, 2009 No Comments

My matched set of nonagenarians

is almost two hundred years old
and nearing escape velocity.
They are failing to thrive with a vengeance.

They have outlived everyone
except the powers of attorney
for whom they are a source of consternation.

Their constipation is prune-proof.
They scratch where it itches till it bleeds
and call on me to staunch the bleeding.

They can’t recall our earnest conversations.
Adult Protective Services
elicits

their indignation reflex. They ready, aim
and fire
their walkers at the social worker.

Pride goes before their falls.
They hoard.
In their home every room is attic.

Neither odor nor order matters.
Thank goodness you’re here they say
and then berate me.

It’s true.
I don’t know what to do.
I meet the lawyer

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

Tag: palliative care

My Homage to Palliative Care

Daring to Dream

Holiday Concert

Native Ways

She Likes Chocolate

Going Through the Grits

Hope in a Hopeless Place

Race in the Advance Directives Conversation

A Doctor’s Dilemma

A Different Kind of Miracle

Mementos and Memories

Failure to Thrive

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

Tag: palliative care

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