JCO oncology practice
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JCO oncology practice · Sep 2020
Effects of a Communication Intervention Randomized Controlled Trial to Enable Goals-of-Care Discussions.
Patients with advanced cancer often have a poor understanding of cancer incurability, which correlates with more aggressive treatment near the end of life (EOL). We sought to determine whether training oncologists to elicit patient values for goals-of-care (GoC) discussions will increase and improve these discussions. We explored its impact on use of aggressive care at EOL. ⋯ Use of a coaching model focused on teaching oncologists to elicit patient values improved that skill but did not increase prevalence or quality of GoC discussions among patients with advanced cancer. There was no impact on high care utilization at EOL.
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JCO oncology practice · Sep 2020
Hematology/Oncology Fellowship Emergency Restructuring in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic-Henry Ford Hospital, Michigan.
The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc and created challenges in various subspecialty training programs, including hematology/oncology fellowship programs. The challenge of social distancing, providing care for those infected by COVID-19, continuing appropriate treatment of time-sensitive diseases, and the looming threat of health care worker infections required swift planning and restructuring of training programs. ⋯ While understanding that there is no one-size-fits-all, shared experiences can assist training programs to incorporate best practices and customize their programs to provide an active educational environment that balances patient care needs, didactics, scholarly activities, and wellbeing during the process of rapid changes and adaptation. We share our hematology/oncology fellowship program's restructuring approach in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.