According to wikipedia, "Palliative Care is any form of medical care or treatment that concentrates on reducing the severity of disease symptoms, rather than striving to halt, delay, or reverse progression of the disease itself or provide a cure. The goal is to prevent and relieve suffering and to improve quality of life for people facing serious, complex illness." Unlike hospice care, patients receiving palliative care don't have to have a terminal diagnosis, but many of the patients receiving palliative care are at the end of their lives.
Palliative Care medicine is an emotionally tough job and definitely takes a special individual to be able to gracefully deal with the patients and their families. After observing a few family meetings it seems as if the palliative care physician is equally there to aid in the comfort of the patient as well as to help the family deal with their issues. A family meeting is a meeting in which the physician or team of physicians, plus possibly social work,etc sit down with the family and discuss the options left open for the patient, etc. Oftentimes these conversations relate to how much do we want to do for the patient - are we full steam ahead and trying to save them or are we to a point where we are going to back off the curative care and go more for a comfort approach. There is a time in medicine when enough is a enough and it is time to give up. The art and challenge is knowing when that point is - what would the patient want? These are emotionally tough times when families fight and change their minds repeatedly. No one wants to feel they caused the death of a loved one, yet at the same time you do not want them to suffer.
In the past few days, I have sat through a few family meetings. I feel myself being pulled to a sociological perspective. I've seen a son completely ok with the passing of his mother, trying to do what is best for her to a wife not accepting that her husband's time may be rapidly upon her - caught up in paper work and trying to grasp onto something anything that she can control. Let the families talk - let them express themselves, let them ask the same questions over and over. No one is in a clear state of mind under such emotionally stressful circumstances. It is an interesting, heartbreaking, and rewarding field. These physicians help families to be ok with their decisions and help patients to be comfortable.
Today I witnessed a young woman a few years older than myself give the ok to let her mother go, while the resident I work with just had a baby. Life.
Where does all of this leave me? I'm not really sure. I haven't taken the time to process it all. Sometimes it just happens too quickly. For me this has served as a catalyst to over my vacation next month have general conversations with my parents about what they would want done in certain situations. There is no way to prepare for every scenario, just as what you would want done is different depending on what has happened and where you are in your life, but a framework is helpful.
These few days have also reminded me about living life, enjoying each and everyday, and keeping my priorities in order!
No comments:
Post a Comment