Seeing the country ready to move on from #COVID is leading me to reflect on my own experience.
As a pediatrician, I know I haven’t seen nearly the devastation that my colleagues in adult medicine have.
As a pediatric palliative care doctor, I’ve seen enough.
🧵 1/7 I’ve seen children die from #COVID and, to me, one preventable child death is too many.
If you’re wondering, “Did they have underlying illnesses?” ask yourself why you’re asking that, and why it should matter
2/7

Once again the conversation has started about whether we should change the name “palliative care.”

I appreciate the rationale including points made in a recent @washingtonpost article.

Allow me to present a counterpoint.

A 🧵, with videos:

#hapc #pedpc #MedEd #scicomm

1/ Yes, fear of palliative care comes from an association in some people’s minds with death.

As many including @SoniaMKhunkhun @anandiyermd @ctsinclair have pointed out, that is likely a failure of education and due to a cultural fear of death itself, not palliative care.

2/

📣 Thrilled to share our publication!

Our first case series of Dignity Therapy modified for the pediatric #PalliativeCare population.

Thankful to have had @TXgriefgirl as an amazing partner in this work.

A 🧵 with summary and some reflections

1/x

liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/pm… We attended the Dignity Therapy Training Workshop with @HMChochinov.

It was hands down the most impactful workshop I’ve ever attended and can’t recommend it highly enough.

#hapc #pedpc

2/x

workshops.dignityincare.ca

A #medthread #tweetorial on assessing goals of care. People often say “tell me your goals” and are confused when the response is “get better and go home” and conversation over.

https://twitter.com/drjrubenstein/status/1233878872510345216

First, until patients have been given reason to consider a goal beyond this (new bad news, disease progression, etc.), there probably isn’t any reason for a person to feel the need to reasses their own goals.