Empowering patients: Emergency department palliative care
A few months ago, I walked into work on a late-night shift. One of the nurse practitioners came up to me and said, “There’s someone you need to see right away.”
The patient was a woman of about 60, and it was clear that she was critically ill. According to her husband, she’d been diagnosed with cancer six months ago. It had metastasized throughout her body. Her oncology team made several …