National Academies Webinar on Opioids in Serious Illness This Thursday

by Christian Sinclair (@ctsinclair)

Many of us who work in palliative care and hospice have seen a major shift in how patients and families respond to opioid prescribing for pain in serious illness. Because of the significant impact of opioid abuse on communities across the country, many new policies and rules are being put in place to reduce the prescriptions of opioids. Of course, this also places a burden on prescribers and patients seeking to utilize opioids judiciously for pain from advanced disease.

For the past few years, I have represented the AAHPM at the Roundtable on Quality Care for People with Serious Illness hosted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) (formerly known as the Institute of Medicine IOM). This Thursday, November 29, 2018, NASEM is streaming a free, live conference on "Pain and Symptom Management for People with Serious Illness in the Context of the Opioid Epidemic."

This topic is of utmost importance for any palliative care clinician and with the high caliber of speakers and curated information I strongly encourage someone from your organization or team to make room on Thursday to participate in the stream. There will be the ability to ask questions via Twitter at the end of sessions, so you have a chance to get the information you need.

I have been lucky enough to attend all of the public workshops for the Roundtable and I can say that the speakers are first-rate and the information is key to managing care for the seriously ill. They are one of the best free online learning experiences in the realm of palliative care in the last few years. So sit down and carve out sometime on Thursday. And if you cannot make this one, NASEM is great at posting videos online afterward.

Register today!

You can also follow on Twitter at #SeriousIllnessCareNASEM.

Christian Sinclair (@ctsinclair) is a palliative care physician at the University of Kansas Health System and is editor-in-chief of Pallimed. When not traveling to Washington DC for the Roundtable, he can be found surfing online for other palliative care learning experiences.