Profile BY AMY LYNN SORREL
End-of-life care: the long conversation
“WHEN WE CAN HAVE THESE CONVERSATIONS, IT TURNS OUT THAT OUR CLINICAL PRACTICE BECOMES A LOT MORE AUTHENTIC AND SATISFYING BECAUSE YOU ACTUALLY CAN ACHIEVE VALUABLE CLINICAL GOALS EVEN WHEN YOU CAN’T CURE SOMEONE.”
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Ira Byock, MD, a national expert in end-of-life care, will discuss the sensitive issue at TexMed 2015 in May.
C
alifornia palliative care specialist, author, and consultant Ira Byock, MD,
calls the issues surrounding end- of-life care “a public health crisis.” But he says many of the same solu- tions to improving the health care system overall — shared decision- making, advancements in medical education, better payment and de- livery structures — apply equally to this area of medical care. “Part of the achievable goals of health care should be to help people die well,” says the executive direc- tor and chief medical officer for the Institute for Human Caring of Providence Health and Services, a 35-hospital health system serving five western states. Texas Medicine spoke to Dr.
Byock for a preview of his upcom- ing keynote address during the general session of the Texas Medi-
PHOTO PROVIDED BY IRA BYOCK, MD April 2015 TEXAS MEDICINE 57
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