Palliative Care: Communicating at the Edge of Life
Our immediate past-president, Tamara Ball, MD, was Moderator for an Open Session "Palliative Care: Collaborative Communication at the Edge of Life" at the 2009 National Meeting of AMWA. It was fitting that the panel Tami introduced comprised 2 Dallas professionals whose collaboration has alleviated some of the suffering of patients and families who face the last days of life, a physician and a news reporter. In a way that speaks to our profession, this was a collaboration between a health care worker with a compelling story and a medical communicator—a newspaper reporter—with the skill to tell that story in a way that resonated with the Dallas public and beyond.
Doctor Robert Fine and his team at the Baylor University Medical Center were the subject of a 5-part series in the Dallas Morning News, written by reporter Lee Hancock and illustrated by her colleague, the videographer Sonya Hebert. The mood for the Open Session was set by viewing part of the video that Ms. Hebert took while gathering material for the series, which had been nominated for a Pulitzer prize.
Tami, in her introduction of Dr. Fine, connected his medical career with a strong background in the humanities—specifically, his interest in ethics—that led him to involvement in the hospice movement, and then through the inspiration of his nurse Min Patel, to start the palliative care program at his hospital. Lee's path crossed Dr. Fine's through her experience with the prolonged suffering and finally, the death, of a beloved younger brother. Lee, whose usual beat includes combat zones and areas of violence and death here and abroad, sought out Dr. Fine when she heard about the powerful effect his program was having on terminally ill patients and their families.
In her final remarks before turning over the program to Lee and Dr. Fine, Tami recalled her experience as a third-year medical student—how, even when it was obvious to the entire medical team that the patient could not be saved, it was an absolute cultural tabloo to ever say "die." She described the situation as one where, at a time when important end-of-life decisions needed to be made, "people became paralyzed and the medical machine kept rolling on."
This Open Session was emotional and inspiring. If you wish to learn more about the palliative care movement, visit the excellent website of the Center to Advance Palliative Care.