Lawrence H. Einhorn, MD, of Indiana University Simon Cancer Center, discusses the ways in which a dedicated palliative radiation consult service can improve the quality of palliative cancer care (Abstract 110).
Diane Portman, MD, of Moffitt Cancer Center, discusses clinical pathways that embed palliative care along the spectrum of care for a variety of cancer disease states.
Judith Vick, MD Candidate, of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Rachelle E. Bernacki, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discuss a tool that could help clinicians identify seriously ill patients who would benefit from conversations about their goals and values (Abstract 8).
As Steering Committee Chair of this year’s symposium, Jennifer S. Temel, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital, discusses the goals and highlights of the meeting.
Betty Ferrell, PhD, RN, of City of Hope, discusses two papers that look at an important issue from different perspectives: depression and anxiety among family caregivers of patients with advanced cancer, and the link between oncologists’ dispositional affect and depressive symptoms in their patients with metastatic cancer (Abstracts 224, 214).
Anthony L. Back, MD, of Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, summarizes a general session on best practices and novel tools for enhancing communication between patients and oncology providers (Abstracts 8,9, 39).
