Mastodon Cardiology and palliative care - Frailty, ICDs, advanced heart failure ~ Pallimed

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Cardiology and palliative care - Frailty, ICDs, advanced heart failure

by John Mandrola, MD

This Wednesday Feb 11th, at 9 PM EST, I will be a guest host of the weekly Hospice and Palliative care Tweet Chat.

Dr. Christian Sinclair recently commented on my stewardship piece on theHeart.org. Christian then emailed me to ask whether I would host #HPM chat on Twitter.

I agreed because I know cardiologists could benefit from talking with hospice and palliative care pros.

The good news about medical technology is that people are living longer. That is also the challenge. Cardiologists are increasingly called on to treat the elderly and frail. We are innovators and doers, but human beings are not immortal.

Yet, I am sure of this: When life-prolonging measures are no longer effective or desired by the patient, the opportunity to deliver care, beautiful care, remains. It is just that most doctors have little (to no) training in helping patients transition to care with different goals. Too often, we fail to see that there is always something else to do.

Here are the three topics we will start with:

T1: Frailty is an important predictor of outcomes, but how do we get specialists to see it, talk about it, and use it in decision making? (re: the coming revolution in percutaneous valve surgery.)

T2: ICD generator-change surgery in the elderly: How do we best present the different paths? It seems a simple question but it is not because it means discussing competing causes of death. (Please see Drs Drye case report in Circulation Outcomes.)

T3: What is the role of palliative care in advanced heart failure? Could early palliative care be as useful in advanced heart disease as it is in advanced lung cancer?

What: #hpm chat on Twitter
When: Wed 2/112015 - 9p ET/ 6p PT
Host: John Mandrola 
Facebook Event Listing: https://www.facebook.com/events/1013090115371076/

If you are new to Tweetchats, you do not need a Twitter account to follow along. Try using the search function on Twitter. If you do have a Twitter account, we recommend using nurph.com, for ease of following.

We will be posting the transcript and analytics here after the chat takes place. Chat Transcript and Chat Analytics courtesy of @Symplur

John Mandrola, MD is a cardiac electrophysiologist practicing in Louisville KY. I am also a husband to a palliative care doctor, a father, a bike racer, and a regular columnist at theHeart.org | Medscape

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