Palliative care

[MyOdyssey]

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Is palliative care whether in the cancer treatment context or otherwise considered a specialty or subspecialty?

 

[Tenk]

It's a subspecialty that you practice after completing a fellowship (which requires you to have completed a residency program first). You can get into a palliative care fellowship from multiple specialties, including anesthesia, EM, FM, IM, OBGYN, peds, PM&R, psych, neuro, radiology, and surgery. Here's more info: http://aahpm.org/uploads/AAHPM16_Medical_Student_BroWEB.pdf

You don’t have to complete a fellowship to practice palliative care although it is becoming more popular to do so.

 

[MyOdyssey]

To all who have responded thus far, thank you!

I have a basic follow up question.

Apart from cancer patients, what other kinds of patients do palliative care specialists tend to see the most?

 

[URHere]

I have a basic follow up question.

Apart from cancer patients, what other kinds of patients do palliative care specialists tend to see the most?

End-stage everything. Patients who have had severe strokes with very little remaining quality of life. Advanced COPD. End-stage liver disease. On the pediatric side, you often see kids with intractable seizures, severe genetic diseases, or with cystic fibrosis (the non-transplant candidates). Patients where the medical system either doesn't have much left to offer, or where those treatments come with little to no actual gain.

 

[Pathdocmd]

To all who have responded thus far, thank you!

I have a basic follow up question.

Apart from cancer patients, what other kinds of patients do palliative care specialists tend to see the most?

My fiancee is a hospice nurse and COPD, CHF, and advanced dementia are frequently seen.

 

[MyOdyssey]

In addition to what's been said above, palliative care is not just for people who are dying. This is a super common misconception. Any patient with a severe or chronic illness that results in diminished quality of life can access and benefit from palliative care, not just those who are terminal. Palliative care can be adding comfort care measures to aggressive treatment that is aimed at prolonging life, or it can be used alone in place of aggressive treatment (i.e. hospice care). During my rotations I had one patient who had cancer with a decent prognosis but a difficult treatment course - palliative care helped her with pain management and diet and that sort of thing. They also did similar stuff for a patient I had with autoimmune disease - she would probably live a long time and end up dying from something else, but they just helped manage her symptoms to maintain her quality of life.

So hospice patient populations are typically under palliative care or not?

 

[Sagebrush]

So hospice patient populations are typically under palliative care or not?

All hospice patients are palliative care patients. Not all palliative care patients are hospice patients.