Farr Curlin discusses Jeffrey Bishop’s book The Anticipatory Corpse … In The Anticipatory Corpse: Medicine, Power, and the Care of the Dying, physician-philosopher Jeffrey Bishop argues that modern medicine has adopted a “metaphysics of efficient causation”—a focus on the immediate cause of things that ignores their ultimate purpose. As a result, medicine now takes its […]
begin with the end in mind … Read More »
… Casarett and colleagues’ article cautioning against misapplying routine safety measures in the hospice setting. Fundamental differences include goals of care (comfort not cure), longevity (days to months not years) and primary caregivers (family and friends not trained health care personnel). A follow-up article would address safety measures that are appropriate and specific for hospice
safety in hospice … Read More »
Adele V. (not her real name), mid-60s, morbidly obese, heart disease, diabetes, dependent edema that became painful by late afternoon … Adele’s husband, slim and well dressed, strides through the front door. He nods at his wife, then me, and sits without a word in the corner … What the room tells me, what her
everyone has a story … Read More »
… not as a business; as a calling which exacts from you at every turn self-sacrifice, devotion, love and tenderness to your fellow-men. Once you get down to a purely business level, your influence is gone and the true light of your life is dimmed. You must work in the missionary spirit, with a breadth
You are in this profession as a calling … Read More »
Adriaen Brouwer’s Bitter Medicine … “But medicine has a bitter taste in his own arena, which no technological progress can sweeten. In its fight against evil and death, medicine can win a battle but lose the war. The disease that seems to be beaten, rises embodied in new, more powerful figures, like an evil alien
Curry et. al. demonstrate that an organizational culture of trust and teamwork is the foundation for high performing quality patient care. “ … achieving high performance may require long-term investment and concerted efforts to create an organizational culture that supports full engagement in quality, strong communication and coordination among groups, and the capacity for problem
more than policies and procedures … Read More »
roundtable discussion … CAPC IPAL-ICU website …
palliative care in the icu … Read More »
David Weissman … Next Gen Palliative Care Diane Meier … first chapter of her Palliative Care text … interview with Diane Rehm Atul Gawande … New Yorker article NEJM study palliative care in lung cancer
palliative care resources … Read More »
“… At the time of our founding, Thomas Jefferson wrote that “Almighty God hath created the mind free. … All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens … are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion.” He also wrote that the “moral duties which exist between individual and individual
conscience protection & the American experience … Read More »
“Conscience—there are two ways of regarding conscience; one as a mere sort of sense of propriety, a taste teaching us to do this or that, the other as the echo of God’s voice. Now all depends on this distinction—the first way is not of faith, and the second is of faith”. Geissler Conscience and Truth in the writings
Newman on Conscience … Read More »
