Dr Brent M. Kious joins Ethics Talk to discuss his article, coauthored with Dr Ryan H. Nelson: “Does It Matter Whether a Psychiatric Intervention Is ‘Palliative’?”
Dr Cynthia Geppert joins Ethics Talk to discuss how teaching health professions students and trainees about palliative psychiatry reinvigorates core philosophy of medicine investigations into what health care is for.
After assessing the reasons for a patient’s unrealistic hopefulness in the face of clear understanding, a clinician may believe that significant harm will come to the patient if he or she does not acknowledge the seriousness of the illness.
Fibromyalgia, with no positive tests, is a “foreigner” in the medical landscape. Medicine looks for signs of pathology, changes in the structure or function of organs. The mantra of physicians facing patients with fibromyalgia: “Your tests are normal.”
One strategy is to determine “triggers” that alert the primary clinician that the patient has a high symptom burden or difficulty coping with the diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment plans and should be offered palliative care services.
Asking for forgiveness may be oppressive to a patient or family still grappling with the fact of the harm, the impact of the harm, and their own emotional response to the harm.