Palliative Care Pioneer: Susan Block
Today we have the honor of interviewing Susan Block, MD, one of the pioneering leaders in the fields of palliative care, particularly psychosocial aspects of palliative care.\xa0 Susan led the Project on Death in America\u2019s Faculty Scholars program, used her dual training in internal medicine and psychiatry to shine a light on psychosocial aspects of palliative care, and founded the Department of Psychosocial Care at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women\u2019s Hospital.\xa0\xa0
We talk with Susan about how far the field has come, from early days when the attending physician would decide which patients were DNR and place a black \u201cno code\u201d dot in the chart.\xa0 We talk about challenges facing the field today.\xa0 In particular, she reminds us that when we think about the most challenging of our patient encounters, they almost always involve a complex psychosocial dynamic, and this has received far less attention than communication and symptom management issues.\xa0\xa0
We delighted to be joined by Brian Block, pulmonary/critical care faculty at UCSF and frequent guest host on GeriPal\u2026and also nephew to Susan.
-@AlexSmithMD\xa0
Links:
-PDIA Faculty Scholars Program