Much is being made of palliative care these days, especially in the doctor-assisted suicide debate.  Prominent palliative care specialists such as Ira Byock and former assisted-suicide advocate Diane Meier  strongly oppose such legislation in our new era of palliative care. According to the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC), headed by Dr. Meier, palliative care “is specialized medical…Read more »

I received an early morning phone call from my aunt. “Your mother is very upset. She doesn’t know what to do. You need to stop pressuring her about treatment. Dick is dying and the doctors told her he doesn’t need all these tests. You should not go down to visit today.” Decision-making for caregivers has…Read more »

The healthcare system has a very distinct line separating hospital care from outpatient care. Hospitals are expensive and so they are the main target of cost containment.  Here is where caregivers need to me the most vigilant. They moved Dick out of the ICU after he received his most critical treatments–loading of the new anti-arrhythmia…Read more »

Dick would commonly be thought of as my stepfather because he married my mother, but since they have only been married for nine years I consider him my mother’s husband.  He’s a wonderful man who is dying of renal cancer, and I am his healthcare proxy. As a physician assistant and because I know Dick…Read more »