Full Code and Approaching Asystole

[Prof Moriarty]

This forum is full code and approaching asystole.

I looked at my other recent thread and in one month it got 800+ views and ZERO replies. There have been a total of ~15 posts here in the last 6 months! Mostly questions with no answers.

I assume that you are on this forum because you think Palliative Care Medicine is important!

• If you're in the field, chime in!
• If you're a student and you know someone in the field, direct them to this forum and tell them we need their input.

If you're on this forum then you probably know how desperately our health care system needs Palliative Care and how poorly understood it is, even by hospital staff, including physicians.

If you've worked at hospitals with a palliative care service vs those without one, you know how different this chapter in a person's life can be. This field needs to grow. In order to grow you need to plant some seeds. Not everyone can make it to the annual convention. Fortunately this is the 21st century and we can communicate right here on SDN.

This is a call to action to palliative care physicians and others in the field:

• We need you! Get on here and share your experience with medical students and residents.

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Members don't see this ad.

 

[ForamenMagnumPI]

First of all, I like the colors. Very emphatic.
I agree that we need to be more vocal. With all the "death panels" and "unplugging Grandma" craziness of the past year or so, I think that the true message of palliative care has been lost.
I'm with you, Prof Moriarty! (and, look. Now you've had a reply to a post)

 

[Prof Moriarty]

I'm with you, Prof Moriarty! (and, look. Now you've had a reply to a post)

Thanks for the shout out but we need more! Post about your fellowship, your experience, your opinion on one of the questions posed on here, whatever. Get your colleagues to stop by and contribute. Have you seen the anesthesiology forum? That place is open 24-7. This board gets a post once a month that'll get 1000 views and zero replies.

 

[corpsmanUP]

I think one of the most important mergers in the future will be the merging of emergency physicians like myself with palliative medicine. I had the benefit of spending a required hospice month with a palliative specialist in medical school and it was eye opening. I learned that there was a much nicer way to die than to die in the ICU, or the ED.

Since then I have been spending years watching people try to survive very bad diseases, and most have not. In residency I spent many months in the ICU and I can tell you that critical care physicians have a hard time letting go of patients. I think I heard someone say that the average time spent on hospice in the country is less than 48 hours. That is because physicians are not willing to admit that a patient is dying and they do them a disservice in letting them think they are going to perhaps improve, all the way up to the time that they die.

As an emergency physician who has seen a lot of people die an agonizing death in the ED or the ICU, I can tell you that I routinely tell family members that their loved one is suffering from a condition that is irreversible and will take their life. Big head bleeds, major traumas, codes gone awry (meaning EMS was able to get someone's heart to respond with every drug in the drug box yet the patient has no signs of brain activity).

I think for certain conditions it just makes way more sense to end suffering in the ED, and not hide behind this medicolegal shielf and instead admit the patient only to die or have care withdrawn 2 weeks later. End of life issues cost all of us a ton of money.

I personally would like to have extra knowledge in end of life care and issues without having to do a fellowship. I had a buddy that somehow got his hospice and palliative board without having to do anything other than do a few months of readings and take an exam. Anyone know about something like this for an emergency physician? My buddy is an FP.

 

[Prof Moriarty]

I personally would like to have extra knowledge in end of life care and issues without having to do a fellowship. I had a buddy that somehow got his hospice and palliative board without having to do anything other than do a few months of readings and take an exam. Anyone know about something like this for an emergency physician? My buddy is an FP.

You can grandfather in before 2012 without a fellowship. You need a certain amt of experience to be eligible to take the exam, which you sign up for through the EM Board. See here: http://www.aahpm.org/certification/abms.html#individual