Journal of Palliative Medicine: Dramatic 22% increase in Impact Factor
June 29, 2011 | 
Author
The Journal of Palliative medicine's Impact Factor is trending up! It rose by an unprecedented 22% in the past year to a whopping 2.245. This is fantastic news for our Journal as well as the field of palliative care. Read the rest of this entry »
Talk to the Author: Palliative Care Online: A Pilot Study on a Pancreatic Cancer Website
From the JPM SoMe editor: Dr. Marian Grant,the first author of the recent original research JPM article, gives as some insight into the history of the study. One unique point about this study is that it is.... Read the rest of this entry »
$2 Million Awarded for Palliative Care Research to Improve Care of Seriously Ill Patients
The American Cancer Society and the National Palliative Care Research Center (NPCRC) are awarding $2 million in research grants to researchers at 12 institutions for studies aimed at reducing suffering for seriously ill patients and their family caregivers. The studies will be conducted over the next two years.
We proudly note that JPM Social Media Panelist Melissa Garrido was awarded a career development award by NPCRC. Read the rest of this entry »
Call for Preventive Palliative Care
HHS Secretary Sebelius & U.S. Surgeon General Regina M. Benjamin unveiled the first ever National Prevention Strategy outlines the ways that public and private partners can help Americans stay healthy and fit and improve our nation’s prosperity.
I applaud this seminal national effort. I would also like to call attention to the fact that there is currently no information about "preventive palliative care" in this important national document. Read the rest of this entry »
Exciting New Blog Series: “Ask the expert” Inaugural guest is Charles von Gunten, MD PhD, EIC, Journal of Palliative Medicine
You are invited to ask your questions about palliative care to Dr. Charles von Gunten, Editor in Chief, Journal of Palliative Medicine.... Read the rest of this entry »
June 15th is World Elder Abuse Awareness Day
Mr. S, an elderly gentleman with terminal non-cancer diagnosis was admitted to the palliative care unit for terminal care. As is often the case, his functional status improved with good palliative care to the point that he was able to go out on pass. In one of his outings, he met a scam artist who claimed to be a real estate agent. She was a young women who convinced him to buy a house in her name and offered to move in with him into the house and provide care for him until he died after which she would take the house as payment. His children did not know about this arrangement and she told him to withhold the information from everyone. The patient who became very attached to the scam artist initiated paperwork to buy the home for the scam artist. Fortunately,.... Read the rest of this entry »
Canadian man blogs about his preparation for death and assures a post death entry
On May 4th, 2011 Derek Miller’s final blog posting was published after his death – http://www.penmachine.com. He writes poignantly about day to day living, cancer treatment, writing, family life, politics, signing his DNR and what he believes happens after death. Derek provides an example of social media impacting the cultural taboo of dialogue about death. Many questions fill me... Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Cancer, Communication, Humanistic medicine, Patient Centered Care, Psycho-social | 
7 Comments »
And at light’s end…
He’s only 25 years old. My daughter’s age.
But he’s dying, and there’s nothing I, just one of his doctors, can do to stop the dying.
We’re talking a good kid, a kid until March just living his life.
A kid not unlike most 25-year-olds.
Not unlike my daughter, my own 25-year-old daughter.
Hanging with friends. Living. Loving Iowa’s Hawkeyes. Never thinking the inevitable. Until three months ago, when a foot drop signaled, not just a problem, but the inevitable.
His tumor, his glioblastoma, is right now doing what glios do.
Making his brain its brain.
Short-circuiting everything that makes any 25-year-old a 25-year-old, let alone anyone, anyone...... Read the rest of this entry »
New York’s Palliative Care Information Act
The State of New York passed the Palliative Care Information Act in 2010, and it went into effect this past February. The intent of this law is to inform individuals with limited life expectancy about palliative care and other options at the end of life. While the intent of this law is only to provide information about care, it has sparked debate among professional societies, journalists, and advocacy organizations about the role of legislation in doctor-patient communication. Read the rest of this entry »
Watching videos helps patients make EOL decisions
The CBS Evening News ran a story last week that highlighted the fact that 25% of all Medicare spending (about $100 billion) occurs during the last year of life, in part because patients are receiving futile, aggressive treatments. The news story featured a 53 year old woman who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It also talked compassionately about how difficult it is as a doctor to tell a patient that curative treatment is not likely to be effective.
Unconditional offerings – Antidote to burnout?
I have just come back from a week at Upaya in Santa Fe taking a "course" called Being with Dying. Why the quotation marks around the word "course"? The quotation marks reflect my linguistic block - I simply do not have one word that can describe the experience and therefore I need to resort to words such as "course-retreat-contemplative practice immersion". The week long experience was a gathering of..... Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Communication, Patient Centered Care, Pediatrics, Psycho-social | 
Tags: Being with suffering | 10 Comments »
I Don’t Want to Die…
Who does.
Not you. Not me.
At least not yet.
Most patients I see in the course of most weeks, even if dying, only want to go home. Whether to some home you and I might think of as home; whether to a care facility; whether to the care of some caring son, daughter, sister, or, even more poignantly still, a mother, a father.
One and all, those patients all want to go home.
And you, who, wouldn’t?
Your home. Your room. Your bed. Your death. Your way.
For those of us in the business of shepherding the dying, ours is too often about the shepherding.
The dying itself is, after all, for the dying themselves........ Read the rest of this entry »
Sneak peek: The Perceptions of Physicians in South-East Nigeria on Truth Telling for Cancer Diagnosis and Prognosis
“Palliative care as a separate discipline is relatively new in most health institutions in my country ( Nigeria). This means that many hospitals in Nigeria are just beginning to develop organized palliative care service to the patients that need it. In my institution, the foremost teaching hospital where doctors are produced in the south-east Nigeria, a palliative care team has just been formed. The cancer patients form the bulk of the patients seen by the palliative care team. This study is one of the numerous research projects Read the rest of this entry »
State-Based Coverage Solutions : Highlights of the California Health Benefit Exchange
The legislation signed into law in California in September 2010 consisted of two bills.
(i) A state Senate bill established the basic governance and structure of the exchange, and
(ii) a state Assembly bill outlined its activities and put in place insurance market regulations, some of which apply even to carriers who do not participate in the exchange.
1. What are insurance exchanges?
Insurance exchanges are..... Read the rest of this entry »
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