Public hospital palliative social work: addressing patient cultural diversity and psychosocial needs.

Through creative practice innovations and a wide range of professional competencies, social work has contributed substantively to the development of the palliative care field (Harper, 2011 ). As the field continues to grow and evolve, new opportunities are emerging to profile palliative social work in diverse health care settings. A statewide initiative to spread palliative care in California's public hospitals provided just such an opportunity. Palliative social workers from six public hospitals participating in the initiative formed a group to discuss palliative social work in this unique hospital setting. This article highlights the group's insights and experiences as they address the significant cultural diversity and psychosocial needs of public hospital patients receiving palliative care.

Symptom control in stem cell transplantation: a multidisciplinary palliative care team approach. Part 1: Physical symptoms.

Stem cell transplantation (SCT) offers a potential cure for patients with otherwise incurable benign and malignant disorders, but the arduous SCT process may cause considerable physical, social, psychological, and spiritual suffering. Relief of suffering associated with SCT begins by understanding the patient experience and the SCT culture. Symptom burden is the combined impact of all disease- or therapy-related symptoms on the patient's ability to function. In approaching symptom management, the division between physical and psychological symptoms is blurred; physical symptoms are often interrelated with the patient's emotional status and social support. Physical symptoms that frequently occur in SCT include pain, nausea, mucositis, diarrhea, and delirium. At the same time, SCT is recognized as one of the most stressful treatments in modern cancer care, resulting in psychological distress, social isolation, and role changes. Psychological symptoms include depression/ anxiety, grief/loss, demoralization, and anger. Based on our experience on an academic SCT ward for adults, we review physical, psychological, social, and spiritual symptoms during the course of SCT in a two-part series and offer an approach to their management. This month, in part I, we focus on physical symptoms linked to SCT. In a future issue, part II will highlight psychosocial concerns in SCT.

Symptom control in stem cell transplantation: a multidisciplinary palliative care team approach. Part 2: psychosocial concerns.

Stem cell transplantation (SCT) offers a potential cure for patients with otherwise incurable benign and malignant disorders. However, the treatment will cause considerable physical, social, psychological, and spiritual suffering. In part 1 of this review, the management of the physical symptoms was reviewed. In part 2, we discuss the approaches to managing the other aspects of distress that are primarily psychological, social, and spiritual in nature. In practice, these dimensions are not so easily distinguished; the division between physical and psychological symptoms is blurred, and physical symptoms are often interrelated with the patient's emotional status and social support.

Palliative Care Professional Development for Critical Care Nurses: A Multicenter Program.

BACKGROUND: Integrating palliative care into intensive care units (ICUs) requires involvement of bedside nurses, who report inadequate education in palliative care. OBJECTIVE: To implement and evaluate a palliative care professional development program for ICU bedside nurses. METHODS: From May 2013 to January 2015, palliative care advanced practice nurses and nurse educators in 5 academic medical centers completed a 3-day train-the-trainer program followed by 2 years of mentoring to implement the initiative. The program consisted of 8-hour communication workshops for bedside nurses and structured rounds in ICUs, where nurse leaders coached bedside nurses in identifying and addressing palliative care needs. Primary outcomes were nurses' ratings of their palliative care communication skills in surveys, and nurses' identification of palliative care needs during coaching rounds. RESULTS: Each center held at least 6 workshops, training 428 bedside nurses. Nurses rated their skill level higher after the workshop for 15 tasks (eg, responding to family distress, ensuring families understand information in family meetings, all P < .01 vs preworkshop). Coaching rounds in each ICU took a mean of 3 hours per month. For 82% of 1110 patients discussed in rounds, bedside nurses identified palliative care needs and created plans to address them. CONCLUSIONS: Communication skills training workshops increased nurses' ratings of their palliative care communication skills. Coaching rounds supported nurses in identifying and addressing palliative care needs.

Palliative Care Teams as Advocates for Adults with Sickle Cell Disease.

Medical advances have improved the overall life expectancy of patients with sickle cell disease (SCD). Unfortunately, the quality of life for patients with SCD remains a struggle. As the goal of palliative care (PC) is to improve quality of life for patients with serious illnesses, many PC teams are now asked to be involved in the care of these patients and may have variable levels of experience with SCD. Caring for patients with SCD is a complex and difficult task that often causes a reflexive "groan" from health care providers, which usually signifies a negative health care provider attitude stemmed from feeling uncomfortable in treating this complex patient population. It is important to be aware of these implicit biases and to overcome these feelings by becoming more familiar with the lives and experiences of those with SCD. This report provides an overview of SCD, context for the complexity of caring for this patient population, and areas for partnering in care.

Clinical supervision in the palliative care team setting: a concrete approach to team wellness.

Clinical supervision is a structured, case-based approach to learning that is used most often in the mental health field. An established palliative care consultation service at a large, academic medical center implemented a modified clinical supervision model in an effort to improve team members' awareness of their own emotions and the way those emotions impact behavior during, primarily, clinical encounters. This report discusses clinical supervision in detail and, by way of a case, illustrates the power of this intervention as a source of self-care and a concrete approach to managing palliative care team well-being.

When open-ended questions don't work: the role of palliative paternalism in difficult medical decisions.

Abstract The balance between patient autonomy and medical paternalism must be reexamined. The tension between autonomy and paternalism is both an ethical and practical issue. Autonomy is the current gold standard approach to patient communication and has grown to the point that patient preference dictates care, even when their choices are not possible or are medically nonbeneficial. Furthermore, we have observed a trend among physicians to avoid making difficult medical decisions by hiding behind a shield of patient autonomy. Paternalism, characterized as the antithesis of autonomy, is widely dismissed as having any role in medicine. We disagree and believe that paternalism still has an important role in medical decision making.