The Palliative Medicine Program Patient Centered Care for Patients and Families

 

Palliative Care Medicine is specialized medical care that helps patients, and their families, living with a serious illness. 

Palliative care medicine teams can help with the management of symptoms and the stressors of living with a serious illness, whether these symptoms impact the body, the mind or the spirit. Management of these symptoms may include providing pain control and other physical symptom treatment for some individuals, as well as providing both spiritual and emotional support to others. The added layer of support that Palliative care medicine teams provide can be done in combination with curative care, or be the sole focus of care, such as comfort care. 

Research has shown that early involvement of palliative care medicine teams leads to improvements in patient outcomes such as better quality of life, mood, patient and family satisfaction, prognostic understanding, and possibly survival.

Our multidisciplinary team of palliative care medicine specialists is comprised of physicians, advanced practice providers (nurse practitioners and physicians assistants), nurses, pharmacists, chaplains, child life experts, social workers and trainees. Together the team provides compassionate specialized medical care to improve quality of life for patients and their families as they cope with serious illness. Our team works together with a patient’s team of medical doctors and members of their care team to provide this extra layer of support.