Sunday, December 6, 2009
Poll: Intrathecal Pain Pumps for Hospice / Palliative Care Patients
In my hospice and palliative medicine practice I have been seeing many more intrathecal pumps being used in the past year then I can recall. More and more palliative care doctors are telling me they are being asked to help in the management of these pumps and they express different levels of comfort and competency. So as I thought more about this, I wanted to write a post about all the issues I have concerns about regarding the use of intrathecal pain pumps for hospice and palliative care patient populations mostly for the indication of cancer related pain.
But I decided instead of telling you how I felt and laying all the issues out I would take your pulse and use that to better inform my writing, so please take this short (less than 5 minutes...I swear) poll. Your reward for taking the poll is multiple: 1) you see what others are thinking about this 2) you contribute to the informal knowledge base of attitudes and experience regarding IT pumps 3) you get a better researched post from me.
The poll is aimed at nurses and doctors. Please feel free to pass it on. More voices = more opinions.