Project gives wake-up call to doctors
A new project is giving physicians training in end-of-life care with a goal of improving pain management and "comfort care."
The project is in response to an eight-year clinical study that found that efforts to prolong people’s lives too often merely prolong dying and leave patients to die alone, hooked up to machines and in pain. That study, called the Study to Understand Prognoses and Preferences for Outcomes and Risks of Treatment (SUPPORT) tracked about 10,000 patients at five major medical centers.
The American Medical Association, with a $1.54 million grant from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation of Princeton, NJ, will attempt to reach thousands of American physicians through national and regional training conferences.
The project will focus on two areas:
• helping physicians work with patients in advance care planning;
• providing opportunities for physicians to increase their skills in palliative medicine, which is also called comfort care.
Doctors will learn skills in talking with patients about health care issues before a crisis occurs, says Rosemary Gibson, senior program officer for the project.
"The skills doctors will learn under this program will help them be more effective advocates for patients’ wishes," Gibson says.
The American Medical Association has agreed to take the following actions:
• develop materials for physician training in advance care planning and palliative medicine;
• hold a conference for medical leaders;
• conduct regional conferences for physicians;
• prepare nationwide mailings of educational materials for every practicing physician;
• establish a speakers’ bureau of experts to participate in local workshops and seminars;
• monitor the project’s impact.
For more information about the educational materials and the project, contact The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation at (609) 243-5933 or at the foundation’s web site: www.lastacts.org.
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