Geripal-podcast

You know when you walk out of a patient's room and have that sense, “This isn’t going to go well.” The patient is sick and getting sicker, and refuses to let you talk with family or other members of her inner circle.  Should you stop at “no?”  Today we talk with Anne Rohlfing, Lynn Flint, and Anne Kelly, authors of a JGIM article on the reasons we shouldn’t stop at “no.”  We owe it to the patient to explore the reasons behind the “no,” commonly not wanting to be a burden to their family.  In such cases, we owe it to the patient to use persuasion, for example, “I hear that you don’t want to be a burden.  And I’m worried that there may come a time when you have trouble making decisions for yourself.  We will have to reach out to your daughter then to help with decisions. Imagine her hearing for the first time that you’re sick, that you’re hospitalized, that you’re in the ICU, and that you can’t make your own decisions?  That’s a huge amount of news all at once. It would help her to prepare if we could start tal