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End of life care Resources

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Bioethics for clinicians: Protestant bioethics

Primary Author: Merril Pauls, Department of Emergency Medicine, Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre

Article from the CMAJ (the Canadian Medical Association) that provides an overview of common Protestant beliefs and highlights concepts that are particularly relevant to bioethics. Contains a few example cases.

Date Last Modified 02/05/2002 Article, Case example/study

Coping with Religious Coping

Primary Author: Kyle B. Brothers, Vanderbilt Children's Hospital

This opinion piece was published in the October 2009 issue of Virtual Mentor, the American Medical Association's online ethics journal. In it Dr. Brothers discusses the The Coping with Cancer Study by Phelps et al., which found that "those patients who reported using positive religious coping methods on a survey instrument were significantly more likely than others to have undergone invasive life support at the end of their lives and to have died in intensive care units."

Dr. Brothers looks at some "limitations of survey-gathered empirical data in describing complex associations between beliefs and end-of-life medical behavior" and concludes that physicians should "develop comfort and confidence in discussing religious beliefs and experiences with patients, propose only reasonable interventions that are medically indicated," and be present even when procedures are not needed.

Date Last Modified 10/01/2009 Article

Religion, Risk, and Medical Decision Making at the End of Life

Primary Author: Peter H. Van Ness, Yale University School of Medicine and Yale School of Public Health

Article from the Journal of Aging and Health describing a study about whether religious patients are more or less willing to undergo the risks associated with potentially life-sustaining treatment. The authors concluded that "Not all dimensions of religiousness have the same association with willingness to undergo potentially life-sustaining treatment. Seriously ill older, religious patients are not especially predisposed to avoid risk and resist treatment".

Date Last Modified 08/01/2008 Article

At end of life, Baylor team fights the current, sometimes loses

Primary Author: Lee Hancock, Dallas Morning News

Part of a Dallas Morning News series on efforts to improve end-of-life medical care, this article covers efforts to ease suffering at the end-of-life at the Baylor University Medical Center. Included is a video in which Dr. Robert Fine and nurse Min Patel of the palliative care team discuss how to bring healing to patients and families at the end of life.

Date Last Modified 12/18/2008 Article, Video

Baylor team helps families understand death, face it together

Primary Author: Lee Hancock, Dallas Morning News

Part of a Dallas Morning News series on efforts to improve end-of-life medical care, this article describes a Baylor University Medical Center palliative care team's efforts to help patients and families face the end of life. Included is a video chronicling the story of one of their patients and her family.

Date Last Modified 12/18/2008 Article, Video