Terri Schiavo and the Pope: My Lessons Learned
As I write first column as President of SHM, palliative care has been much in the news. As a hospitalist who spends much of my time caring for people approaching the end of life and teaching about palliative care, these 2 weeks have kept me busy talking about end of life issues with family, friends, patients, colleagues, and the media. At the same time, these events have reaffirmed for me my choice of a career as a hospitalist and the central role that hospitalists play in providing the highest quality care for the sickest patients, in continually improving that care, and in refining the systems to deliver it.
Terri Schiavo died 2 weeks after her feeding tube was removed. Her life and death sparked protests and political debate. Yet in the end, what seems most profound is the great sadness and loss for her family. Soon after Terri Schiavo died, Pope John Paul II became acutely ill. Several days after a feeding tube was placed, the Pope died in his apartment at the Vatican, triggering a global outpouring of love and grief.
In modern American health care, probably Terri Schiavo and the Pope would have received care from a hospitalist. If she were to arrive in a hospital after a cardiac arrest today, Terri Schiavo would likely be cared for by a hospitalist. It is the hospitalist who would have the first discussions with her family about her condition and prognosis. Similarly, most 84-year-old men with Parkinson’s disease, pneumonia, and a urinary tract infection would be cared for by a hospitalist. Hospitalists are serving as de facto ethicists and palliative care physicians, as we care for increasing numbers of people with serious and terminal illness. This shift in care provides an unprecedented opportunity for us to improve the quality of care for the half of all Americans who die in hospitals. Providing state of the art palliative care reinforces our efforts globally to improve the quality of care for all hospitalized patients. Furthermore, these cases highlight the need for research to define the best ways to deliver that care. As I thought about Terri Schiavo and the Pope, and saw the intense media spotlight on them, I kept thinking, “What does this mean for me?”
I have given this question a great deal of thought over the past week. What, if anything, do the deaths of Terri Schiavo and the Pope teach us? As I see it there are at least 3 important lessons for us as individuals and as hospitalists.
The first lesson is that each of us should consider the kind of care we would want if we were to suffer a devastating injury, as did Terri Schiavo, or be stricken with a progressive, debilitating illness, like the Pope. We should discuss our preferences for care with our loved ones and write them down. As hospitalists we should have these discussions routinely with our patients, document the conversations, notify the patient’s primary care physician, and encourage patients to share their thoughts with their loved ones. As a son, husband, brother, nephew, grandson, and father, I realized that one of the most important obligations I owed to my family was to make my wishes known, and to learn about the wishes of my loved ones. As a hospitalist, I realized that I owed it to my patients to help them express their preferences for care. What I learned echoed what we know about advance directives: You cannot predict what someone will say. Not unexpectedly, my mother, grandmother, and aunt told me that they would never want to live like Terri Schiavo. But in a complete surprise my aunt told me that my favorite uncle, who is blessed with a quick wit and brilliant sense of humor, wants to be kept alive as long as possible.
