Section of Palliative Care and Medical Ethics

Case of the Month

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DATE TITLE/TOPIC
February 2024 The Voice not Heard: Striving for Patient-Centered Care among Patients Lacking Decision-making Capacity
January 2024 POLST versus Out-of-Hospital-DNR: A Tale of Two Forms
October 2023 Making a Referral to Specialty Palliative Care
September 2023 Transfer Home for Hospice Patients
August 2023 Restless Leg Syndrome
July 2023 Opioid Use Disorder or Complex Persistent Opioid Dependence?
June 2023 Use of IV Inotropes in Hospice
May 2023 Medical Conspiracy Theories: Evolution, Cognition, and Emotion
April 2023 When All Else Fails
March 2023 Movement Disorder in Human Prion Disease
February 2023 Lost in Translation: The role of the medical interpreter in Palliative Care goals of care discussions
December 2022 Incorporating active addiction in goals of care decision making
November 2022 “What do I Say?” – Addressing in-the-moment Patient/Family
Explicit Bias Toward Clinical Team Members
October 2022 Saying Goodbye to Your Patien t: Honoring Patient-Clinician
Relationships in the Hospital
September 2022 They told me he would die last time, and he got better
May 2022 Carotid Blowout Syndrome
April 2022 Treating Anxiety and Depression in the Setting of Prolonged QTc
March 2022 Trigeminal Neuralgia in Head and Neck Cancer
February 2022 Identifying and Managing Drug Induced Akathisia
January 2022 The urgent need for care coordination and expertise in the Management of patients with Opioid Use Disorder and Cancer
November 2021 Assessing and Managing Adverse Immune-Related Events of Cancer Immunotherapy
October 2021 Two Tales of TPN: More Complicated than Just Calories
September 2021 Documenting goals of care notes within UPMC Health System
August 2021 Identifying and Managing Diversion of Prescription Medication in the Outpatient Setting
July 2021 Are Antidepressants Safe to Use with Neuroendocrine Tumors?
June 2021 Identifying and Relieving Existential Suffering
May 2021 Management of Odynophagia
April 2021 Talking with patients and surrogate decision makers about Miracles
March 2021 Central Post-stroke Pain
December 2020 Management of Hiccups
November 2020 The Use of Psychostimulants in Patients with Serious Illness
October 2020 Acute Anxiety in Seriously Ill Children and Adolescents
August 2020 How to Talk About Time Limited Trials
July 2020 Deciding Who Can Decide: Assessing Decision-Making Capacity in Hospitalized Patients
June 2020 Diagnosis and Medication Management of Post-operative and Migraine Headache
April 2020 Phantom Limb Pain
March 2020 CAR-T Therapy: What is it and who does it help?
January 2020 “The Art of Medicine”: Using the Visual Arts to Move Away from Burn Out and Towards Resiliency in Medical Training
December 2019 Predicting Prognosis in Parkinson’s Disease
October 2019 The Support Consult: Coping Skills in Real Time
September 2019 Undue Influence or Relational Autonomy? When Family Members Steer Medical Decisions
August 2019 Treating Non-Infectious Diarrhea
June 2019 Cultural Implications and Request for Non-Disclosure of Medical Information
March 2019 Pain in the Ads! Adrenal Insufficiency in Palliative Care
December 2018 Cancer Immunotherapy: New Drugs, Old Lessons
November 2018 Bad to the Bone: Management of Cancer Pain Related to Bone Involvement
October 2018 How to Predict Prognosis in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
September 2018 Identifying the Surrogate
August 2018 Conservative Management of Advanced Chronic Kidney Disease
June 2018 The Huddle before the Family Meeting
April 2018 Lifting the Fog of Chemobrain: Understanding Cancer Related Cognitive Impairment
January 2018 PTSD in seriously ill Patients: A difficult conundrum
December 2017 Addiction Treatment Options, or “What the Heck is an IOP?
November 2017 A Patient Behaving Very Strangely
September 2017 Treating depression in patients who can’t take oral medications
August 2017 Refractory Dyspnea: Oxygen and Opioids
July 2017 Aortic Stenosis, TAVR, and the Potential Role of Palliative Care
June 2017 Quetiapine for Off-Label Use in Anxiety – What is the evidence?
May 2017 Ketamine – A promising antidepressant?
March 2017 Rage and Ramble, Shiver and Shake – Tacrolimus Neurotoxicity
February 2017 Legacy Projects and Life Review in Palliative Care
January 2017 I Swear I Didn’t Use Any Drugs!
December 2016 Discharging Terminal Patients from Hospice: A Perspective on this Conundrum
November 2016 Malignancy related Superior Vena Cava Syndrome
October 2016 Harm Reduction Efforts in Palliative Care Patients on Opioids: Provision of Naloxone Kits in the Community
September 2016 Delirium: Patient and Caregivers Experience
August 2016 Opioid Induced Constipation and Opioid Antagonists
July 2016 Mucositis in Head and Neck Cancer
June 2016 If she is dying anyway, why not give her more chemotherapy?
May 2016 Ziconotide (Prialt): A Blessing and a Curse
April 2016 “Is My Mom Comfortable?” Assessing Dyspnea at the End of Life
April 2016 Huntington’s Disease at End of Life
March 2016 “Let me clear my throat”: A Review of Antitussives for a Malignancy-Related Cough
February 2016 Nerve Blocks
January 2016 Transformation to chronic migraine: A dilemma for migraine patients with cancer pain
December 2015 Palliative Management of Chronic Diarrhea
November 2015 The Use of Narrative Medicine in Existential Distress
October 2015 An older woman with progressive decline in function: What are those weird movements?
August 2015 Treatment of Renal Failure in Patients Who Have Cirrhosis
July 2015 80 year old patient with advanced gastric cancer: When are medical interventions considered “futile?”
June 2015 Scratching the Surface of the Treatment of Pruritus in Palliative Care
May 2015 When being “down in the dumps” isn’t depression
April 2015 A middle aged woman with diffuse large B cell lymphoma in the ICU – is her prognosis good or bad?
March 2015 Paclitaxel- Associated Acute Pain Syndrome: A Novel Neuropathy?
February 2015 Opioid-induced Hyperalgesia
January 2015 When pain doesn’t go away: palliation of post-herpetic neuralgia
December 2014 How Long is Too Long? Complicated Grief
November2014 Mythical Methadone
October 2014 Emotion vs. Fact
September 2014 BPH as a Hospice Diagnosis?
June 2014 Second-Line Anti-emetic Therapies for Refractory Chemotherapy-Induced Nausea and Vomiting
May 2014 The Crying Child
April 2014 Legacy Projects at the End of Life
March 2014 Evaluation and Management of Opioid Induced Constipation
February 2014 “Are you depressed?” Screening for Depression in Palliative Care
January 2014 Talking about Prognosis
December 2013 The Conscientious use of Naloxone in the Palliative Care Patient
November 2013 Comfort Measures for a Patient with a Recent Tracheostomy
October 2013 What is Palliative Home Care?
September 2013 Late Complications of Head and Neck Cancer and Its Treatments
July 2013 Anti-epileptic medicines for pain management
June 2013 Urinary retention, the sometimes-neglected medication side effect
May 2013 Refractory Constipation in a Patient with New Malignant Spinal Cord Compression
April 2013 PTSD from ICD shocks
March 2013 Reconsidering Mirtazapine: Making the Most of a Side Effect Profile
February 2013 Pearls and Pitfalls of Transdermal Fentanyl Administration
January 2013 Choosing an Antipsychotic for the Treatment of Delirium
December 2012 Is She Hospice or Isn’t She?
November 2012 Chondroradionecrosis
October 2012 Use of Transmucosal Immediate-Release Fentanyl (TIRF) Products
September 2012 How to Legally Prescribe Controlled Substances
August 2012 Treating Fibromyalgia
July 2012 Post Inguinal Herniorrhaphy Groin Pain
June 2012 Cutaneous Myiasis: Maggot Infestation of a Malignant Wound
May 2012 The Decision to Discontinue a Left Ventricular Assist Device
April 2012 Addiction in Palliative Care: Leaving the door open for the best possible outcome
March 2012 Radiation Induced Xerostomia and Pain
February 2012 Palliative Care Across the System
January 2012 When Rotating to Methadone is a Good Idea
December 2011 Role of Outpatient Palliative Care for Cancer Patients
November 2011 He’s got renal failure – better order Dilaudid instead of morphine!
July 2011 Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST): Translating the goals of seriously ill patients into a medical order
June 2011 The use of topical non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for pain in palliative care
May 2011 Lymphedema- A common problem without an easy solution
April 2011 Are we really helping patients by recommending they go on disability?
February 2011 What to do after the patient is made CMO
January 2011 Transdermal Granisetron for Refractory Nausea and Vomiting

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