Sunday, September 4, 2016
August 2016 Pallimed Recap
August 2016 has left the building along with a lot of heat, rain and wildfires.
Here is a recap of all of our posts from August 2016. We know there are some you may have already bookmarked, but forgot to read, or maybe you liked it so much you want to share it again.
Make sure to follow, engage, like and comment with us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram and LinkedIN. We always appreciate it when you recommend us to your peers and social media makes it very easy!
Communication
- Palliative Chemotherapy: An Oxymoron by Rebecca Gagne Henderson
Interview/News
- Behind the Scenes: Media Watch by Barry Ashpole
- What happens when it is you? by Michael Fratkin
- August 2016 Journal Review by Christian Sinclair
- Trisomy 13 and 18: When a lethal condition is no longer lethal by Jenni Linebarger
- Worse than Death? ...Dependence by Ross Albert
- FOUR Score: Coma scales and prognosis in the ICU by Drew Rosielle
The Profession
- Photovoice Roundup: Self Care by Lizzy Miles
- Building Resilience in Clinicians to Prevent Burnout by Arif Kamal
Clay Anderson, Drew Rosielle, Lyle Fettig, Anthony Back, Lizzy Miles, Gerg Gifford, Kyle Edmonds, Kathy Kastner, Karl Steinberg, Lynne Kallenbach, Emilie Clark, Robin Kleronomos, Anthony Herbert, Tom Quinn, Karen Kaplan, Lisa LaMagna, Sidnee Weiss-Domis, Daniel Miller, Robin Youlten, Rebecca Gagne Henderson, Linda Dolan, Andy Probolus, Amy Getter, Alex Smith, Gerald Tevrow, Elizabeth Lindenberger, Vikranta Sharma, Elaine Glass, Matt Rhodes, Vickie Leff, Paul Rousseau, Emily Riegel, Will Grinstead, Jeanne Phillips, Staci Mandrola, Julie Koch, Michael Pottash, Thomas Reid, Pippa Hawley, Kat Collett, Michael Fratkin, Julie Christenson and a few anonymous people.
Highlighted Comment for August 2016
Frustrations with words not living up to their promise continue to be a theme this month. Thomas LeBlanc had a great comment on the challenges with the term palliative chemotherapy.
Let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater; the best way to palliate cancer-related symptoms is to actually treat the cancer (if it’s treatable, and if the patient is not too frail to tolerate the treatment). The enemy here isn’t the chemotherapy, it’s the inappropriate use of it in patients who are too ill, or who have resistant disease, or whose goals can’t be met by the treatment. The enemy isn’t the chemotherapy, it’s the notion that patients should be forced to choose either cancer treatment or good palliative care. Instead, I believe they should be able to get both, and we should all work together as a team, oncologist and palliative care clinicians alike, to do what’s best for each patient at each step along the way.
Social Media Highlights
- Most popular Pallimed Facebook post: Condoloneces to Amedisys hospice on the death of Bill Borne - Reached 15k+ people
- Most popular Pallimed Twitter post: We need to be frank about death with terminal patients via @newsweek - 91 Engagements
- Most popular Pallimed Instagram Post: "That's all I wanted: for someone to look at me and listen to me, but in some beautiful and artisitc way." - Gene Wilder - 453 impressions
Passionate Volunteers and Writers Wanted
Do you love hospice and palliative medicine? Got something to say or find interesting things to share? Want to reach nearly 40,000 people with your ideas? We do this with a volunteer staff of ten, but we could use more regular volunteers.
If you are interested in writing for or working with us at Pallimed please check out the Pallimed Opportunities page and complete the form at the bottom. If you want to help we have something you could do! Like write this simple monthly review post (this would be really easy to hand off)! Or join our team of social media ambassadors to help run one of our social media accounts (especially with Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram and Tumblr) - we do on the job training!
Christian Sinclair, MD, FAAHPM is a palliative care doctor at the University of Kansas Medical Center and editor of Pallimed. When not advocating for health care professionals to use social media you can find him playing board games.
Image Credit: Lionello DelPiccolo via Unsplash CC0 1.0
