Amy is in her mid-40s and loves the outdoors—especially biking, hiking, and walking her dog. 

In the fall of 2018, she felt a lump on her neck, and when it did not go away, she visited her primary care doctor. After many tests, she was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer that had spread to her lymph nodes and femur (thigh bone). She was devastated and scared.

A few weeks later, Amy started treatment with radiation and a medicine that helps the body’s immune system fight cancer. This combination can get cancer under control but can cause side effects. 

After a month, Amy’s cancer doctor recognized that she could use an extra layer of support to deal with her symptoms and stress. A palliative care nurse started to visit her at home every week and was available by phone whenever Amy needed to reach out. She helped Amy through her difficult treatments, both physically and emotionally. The goal was to get her back to feeling like herself again, which to her, meant being active and riding her bike.

This is Amy’s palliative care story.

How Palliative Care Helped Amy Get Back to Her Hobbies

In this video, actors portray family, patients, and clinicians to convey the challenges in delivering palliative care as well as presenting approaches to those challenges.

Initial publication: September 30, 2016
Last reviewed: March 18, 2021

Please visit: www.openpediatrics.org
 
OPENPediatrics™ is an interactive digital learning platform for healthcare clinicians sponsored by Boston Children's Hospital and in collaboration with the World Federation of Pediatric Intensive and Critical Care Societies. It is designed to promote the exchange of knowledge between healthcare providers around the world caring for critically ill children in all resource settings. The content includes internationally recognized experts teaching the full range of topics on the care of critically ill children. All content is peer-reviewed and open access-and thus at no expense to the user.

For further information on how to enroll, please email: openpediatrics@childrens.harvard.edu

"Palliative Care Clinical Vignette" by Dave Casavant for OPENPediatrics

In this episode Dr. McPherson interviews Dr. Susan Kristiniak who is the Associate Director for the University of Pennsylvania Health System in palliative care.

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AI is being used to enhance and improve life in varied and often incredible ways. But what if we could use AI to improve the end of our lives, too? Our guest today is Anand Avati, a graduate student in the Artificial Intelligence Lab at Stanford University's Computer Science Department. Anand is co-author of a research paper entitled "Improving Palliative Care with Deep Learning" which details his team's use of a deep learning system to predict patient mortality with the aim of improving access to palliative care for critically-ill patients.

How AI Can Improve Access to Palliative Care

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GetPalliativeCare.org's podcast, A Quality Life, tells the real-life stories of people living with a serious illness, and their families. Each episode explores how palliative care specialists have helped to manage the symptoms and stress of their serious illness, and improve quality of life

How Palliative Care Helped Amy Get Back to Her Hobbies

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