Thread by @WesElyMD

1/🧵 “Live every day like you have a terminal illness.”

The most important thing I learned @ISICEM, after 3 ✈️ & 4,400 miles to Belgium for this huge meeting of #COVID ICU doctors, had nothing to do w science.

The iconic @JRandallCurtis1 taught me…(pic & story shared w perm)

2/ My friend of 25 years opened his lecture on End-of-Life with, “I have a disclosure of sorts. I’ve been diagnosed with ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, aka Lou Gehrig’s disease), so this will probably be the last time I lecture at this meeting.”

Then he asked us to PAUSE.

3/ Talk about a Frame Shift.

I already knew, but it all hit me like a thunderbolt⚡️. The Father of ICU EOL #PalliativeCare research & former president of @atscommunity had just told us all that he has a fatal illness, and we could hear it in his speech pattern.

4/ Randy bravely stood willing, as always, to teach. And teach he did! Slowly & at times clearly struggling, he shared a lifetime of research knowledge to help the rest of us learn how to improve the lives of dying #COVID & non-COVID patients.

Assure them, “I won’t abandon you.”

5/ “Friends, we are bad at communicating to patients & families. And when we bring other teams into family meetings to help busy doctors, but leave out the ICU doctor herself, it’s often worse and leads to more PTSD.”

JAMA: bit.ly/3jsV9aC

6/ “What we must do is VALUE communication as a medication & a form of healing.”

He invented #VALUE, a 5-step approach that stresses acknowledging emotions, listening, understanding the PERSON & eliciting family questions.

bit.ly/3zCbpvx

7/ Randy brought #science to “warm & fuzzy” compassionate care. He & @ElieAzoulay5 teamed up to study VALUE in a clinical trial of 126 patients & families in 22 French ICUs. They lessened the burden of human bereavement by ⬇️ anxiety, depression & #PTSD.
 
bit.ly/3zA2Hhd

8/ Watching Randy lecture, I knew I was witnessing medical history. I choked up as I told the audience about when in 1997 Randy & Dr. Gordon Rubenfeld told me their dream to help others through academics. They brought humanism into the previously cold ICU & ⬇️ doc/nurse burnout.

9/ YOUR LIFE IS BETTER too because #COVID care wouldn’t be what it is without @JRandallCurtis1. He helped taught us a type of spiritual poverty and humility in ICU medicine. To eschew ego and knowledge. The art of touch and listening.

Thank you, Randy!

10/fin
And then Dr. Curtis delivered the emotional slapshot to what may be the most important lecture I’ve ever heard.

These pearls:
❇️ Choose your mentors & colleagues carefully
❇️ Take “sabbaticals”
❇️ Prioritize family!
❇️ Live every day like you have a terminal illness

Friends - please retweet this 🧵 as a living tribute to @JRandallCurtis1 for allowing his story to be shared (I asked him today and without hesitation he said yes). Help spread Randy’s message of ❤️

Dear Randy @JRandallCurtis1 - on behalf of the >half million people who’ve now read this 🧵 about your ONGOING beautiful life, thank you for telling us👇that your ❤️ is full! I think WE all needed to hear this. Thx for the time yesterday walking with me in the park! #brothers