I’m tied to the health sciences, and I have a particular interest in Palliative Care. I get very mixed reactions when I tell people this. They take about three forms:
“Oh, how noble!”
“Oh, how depressing.”
“Oh, because you’re not good at anything else?”
I especially find that people feel that palliative nurses and other allied professionals fall under categories 1 and 2. I don’t really consider 2 negative, since it’s really just a different in perspective. However, tons of people–especially those inside Medicine–think that a doctor who wants to do Palliative Care and who isn’t about to retire must have sort of “failed into” the field. I’m biased, so sharing my opinion won’t enlighten anyone.
I’m curious what the SDMB’s mostly-lay audience feels? What’s the external view of this increasingly-less-obscure field?
My respect for any medical field is tied to the number of syllables in the name.
“Palliative” hasn’t got much going on, so you really have to hit all four syllables “PAL-LI-A-TIVE” to get the most out of it. If you allow simple elision to reduce it to a three syllable “PAL-ya-tive” then you lose 25% or your respect right there.
On a serious note: I had to wiki it to find out what it is. I requires more study and discipline than gathering stray shopping carts back to the corral, so I say “good on ya” and I believe you’re entirely justified to a long bubble bath every once in a while.
ETA: An interest in Palliative Care tied to a username Speaker for the Dead actually is a bit morbid.
A little bit from column A, and a little bit from column B. I would think such folks keep therapists busy (though I suppose doctors do in general). Certainly wouldn’t think anyone was less competitent for choosing such a specialty, particularly with the hassles the DEA has been giving pain management docs…
I’ll go with 1 and 2. It takes special people to do that kind of work, demand seems to be high. People may say something like 3, but they don’t realize that people just desperate for a job won’t last long in that environment.
Having been in several end-of-life situations with family, I have great respect for competent palliative care people. We were dealing with personal physicians rather than specialists, but there were a couple of times when we’d have gone with a PC specialist if one had been available.
Like ER and oncology work, I’d imagine it takes a certain personality to deal with this type of environment. I’d also think that the burnout rate might be high.
I’d probably think of a physician as more along the lines of pain management plus than anything else.
For me it’s “how noble” because I have a friend who does it and I know she is very competent and very compassionate. I never hear her talk about how it’s depressing (only that her clients’ families are insane).
Having just come out the other side of a grandparent’s trip from the hospital to rehab on through to the morgue, right now I can’t say enough good things about folks who do that sort of work. Good on ya.
I have a lot of resepect for palliative care workers. My wife is a Physical Therapist. She did a stint of that type care in a nursing home environment, but over time it really got to her. To go into a field to help people get better, but then be in a specialty where they rarely, if ever, do can be quite an emotional drain.
I will say that my most recent experience, in a dedicated PC unit, was a huge improvement over previous experiences on regular floors.
Thousands of times better. I have recommended them to anyone facing such a situation.
In a couple of earlier situations, everyone involved would have been so much better off with a PC physician and staff. I wish they’d been available at the time.
I’m as agnostic as they come, but I’ll swear that hospice nurses are doing god’s work. The compassion and competence they show when the family is a wreck all around them makes the end-of-life experience bearable (at least it did for me).
A very good friend of mine is a palliative care doctor, and she rocks. Diss her speciality at your peril! But really, I don’t think of it as being vastly different to other medical fields. No matter what you’re doing, you’d better be on the ball all the time, and your patients will sometimes die on you (and it’s not all the time even in palliative care - sometimes they get transferred back out). It’s just the proportions are different.
I have a lot of respect for anyone in medicine generally.
We can’t legally call our hospice unit in our prison a ‘hospice’ due to the fact that to be a licensed hospice, one must be able to allow family members to visit the patient any time night or day, with essentially no notice. Doesn’t work in a maximum security setting. The state hospice organization kicked up a fuss when they heard the news media refer to what we did as ‘hospice’ care.
So that’s why we’re a ‘palliative care’ program.
But we’re a hospice, really.
Though a good hospice does palliative care too. Palliative orthopedics is especially important, as when a dying patient fractures a hip, their quality of life goes way down, and pain goes waaaaaay up, despite massive doses of narcotics. So our palliative orthopedist will do a quick fix for comfort measures. It’s not a new hip designed to last for 20 years, but it does reduce their debility and pain.
I’ll go with somewhere between 1 and 2, and definitely not 3. When my mom was in the hospital in 2011, the palliative care team (a doctor, two nurses, and a psychologist) took my dad, me, and my spouse into an office and gently asked us about what my mom would want, told us what the options were, and so forth. They made it about as easy to deal with as it was possible to be (the first real awareness I had that Mom was probably not going to be leaving the hospital was when one of them introduced herself as a member of the palliative care team) and I was very grateful to them for their kindness and professionalism.
I don’t think I could do that job. I wouldn’t be able to take the constant sadness. I admire anybody who can do it and do it well.
ETA: Can’t resist: great OP name/OP combo, though.
If it comes up in conversation, the instant reflex thought is 2 - because I’m sorry, but it is. I would literally kill myself if that were assigned to be my job, and I have troubles seeing how other people have the emotional and mental reserves to make that their entire profession.
If I THINK about it, I wiggle a little towards 1, but I don’t know that I would say “noble.” More… caretakery?
I have never encountered anyone (don’t deal with medical people any more than I can absolutely help it) who ever said 3 - they may have thought it, but I’ve never heard it as a sentiment before this thread. I find that kind of odd - I may have a lot against doctors in general, but their intelligence and dedication isn’t something I would question, regardless of their specialty. Ok, I lie. I would question one who was a chiropractor, or if they did Reiki or something. That’s about it.
I did a tiny amount of “pro bono” palliative care for my uncle and I was impressed and heartened by the palliative professionals I encountered at the time. We need careful ushering into life and many of us require similar ushering out of it again. I think people have to be of a certain mindset to want to work in that field but I have a lot of respect for those who choose it. Many people don’t seem to realise that we’re all done for.