Learning to Cope: How Far Is Too Close?

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Learning Objectives: After completing this course, the reader will be able to: Describe the human aspects of caring for dying patients and the frustrations of futile oncology treatment.Explain the importance of addressing how issues of life and death affect caregivers.Discuss the advantages and risks of close relationships with patients. Access and take the CME test online and receive 1 hour of AMA PRA category 1 credit at CME.TheOncologist.com Shortly before his death in 1995, Kenneth B. Schwartz, a cancer patient at Massachusetts General Hospital, founded The Kenneth B. Schwartz Center. The Schwartz Center is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing compassionate health care delivery, with the goal of providing hope to patients and support to caregivers. The Schwartz Center Rounds is a monthly multidisciplinary forum where caregivers reflect on important psychosocial issues faced by patients, families, and caregivers, and gain insight and support from fellow staff members. The case is presented of a patient with a precipitous decline in health due to rapidly progressive, metastatic non-small cell lung cancer. The discussion at Schwartz Center Rounds centers on oncologists’ feelings of failure and coping mechanisms when dealing with patients’ deaths. This discussion is followed by a first-year oncology fellow's reaction to caring for this and other terminally ill patients. Then, to provide a broader framework in which to understand these issues, the emotional cost and measurable benefit of close relationships with patients is investigated. To conclude, further educational initiatives are advocated to assist both physicians-in-training and more senior clinicians in dealing with the difficult issues that arise when caring for very ill and dying patients.

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