ESPN sportscaster Stuart Scott’s recent death has given the American public a chance to reflect on what it means to live with a cancer diagnosis. His speech at the ESPY awards in the summer of 2014 was widely hailed as an inspiration to people with cancer. Obviously, the Jimmy Valvano Award for Perseverance with the ties to cancer research (Jimmy V Foundation) and Scott’s public image as someone being treated …
Stuart Scott and his fighting words
Christopher Hitchens, noted author and philosopher, died December 15, 2011 leaving behind many essays, books, and other writings as well as contributing to several lectures, ethics/religion debates, and TV talk shows. His acerbic style often ruffled feathers as he attacked religious dogmatism.
As one of the most famous outspoken atheists of this era, his thoughts on being diagnosed with an incurable disease would be a powerful insight into how atheists might approach …
Christopher Hitchens and the universal experience of dying
I thought I would give a quick overview of good ways for you to make use of Twitter at a medical conference. The growing field of palliative medicine has had a strong social media presence and the addition of more people into our online network helps get important information to people far beyond the patients and families we see each day in our work.
Twitter can be a great way to capture the …
How to use Twitter at your next medical conference
Here is the latest edition of Handy Hints for a National Meeting. The original version was written in 2005 (editions have been more often than yearly).
My first national medical conference was a whirlwind of new ideas and experiences some of which I was not necessarily prepared for.
General
Tips to make the most out of your national medical meeting
Having a healthy level of respect for opioids is critical for any physician. For those of us who prescribe or recommend this class of medicines on a daily basis, this statement rings all the more true. Recent events and research reinforce this reality.
“Oxycontin, Other Opioid Painkillers Tied to Higher Health Risks” was the title of a recent BusinessWeek …
How the reformulation of Oxycontin has affected patients
OncRN is a wonderful blog written by an anonymous author sharing stories and insights in her line of work that many times speak to palliative themes. S/he says it best in her blog description,
my life gets intermittantly (sic) rocked by the wonders/horrors of being an oncology nurse. i just need to talk it all through sometimes.
A recent post is about how to say good-bye to our patients, particularly …
How to say goodbye to patients
If you have spent anytime with a palliative care team in a hospital you will know of their efforts to essentially blacklist Demerol (meperidine) from use in the hospital.
Some hospitals have removed it or restricted it from the formulary all together. In medical culture, Demerol has been a go to opioid peri-OR and mostly favored by surgeons. The drug has been purported to be less likely to cause biliary spasm, …
Demerol used to treat shivering in patients
With Eva and Alicia, both women were very young, 25 and 28, respectively. And for anyone who knows the history of American bioethics will realize young women, severe illness and dying seem to bring about a intense focus of cultural awareness (see Schiavo, Cruzan, Quinlan).
It struck me how the open sharing of the decline of their health towards death may signal …
End of life blogging benefits and the questions it raises
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