The Role of Palliative Care Consultation in Withdrawal of Life-Sustaining Treatment among ICU Patients Receiving Veno-Venous Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (VV-ECMO): A Retrospective Case-Control Study.

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) has extended the survivability of critically ill patients beyond their unsupported prognosis and has widened the timeframe for making an informed decision about the goal of care. However, an extended time window for survival does not necessarily translate into a better outcome and the sustaining treatment is ultimately withdrawn in many patients. Emerging evidence has implicated the determining role of palliative care consult (PCC) in direction of the care that critically ill patients receive.

Discussing goals of care for a delirious advanced cancer patient in the hospice setting.

In the United States, patient autonomy is generally considered the most important ethical principle; however, patients sometimes make decisions that are medically futile or in conflict with the principles of beneficence and nonmaleficence. Difficult issues are often compounded if the patient loses capacity and a surrogate must provide substituted judgments. Allowing autonomy free reign can sometimes be detrimental to patient care and contribute to family distress.

Clinical characteristics of cancer patients referred early to supportive and palliative care.

Background: Palliative care is evolving from end-of-life care to care provided earlier in the disease trajectory. We compared clinical characteristics between patients referred late in the course of their disease (late referrals, LRs) with patients referred earlier (early referrals, ERs).

Method: Six hundred and ninety-five patients referred to the Supportive Care Center (SCC) with follow-up within 30 days were enrolled.

Partner communication about hysterectomy.

Communication between marital partners about a woman's hysterectomy may be difficult and serve as a source of marital conflict. This study was conducted to determine marital partners' usual communication behaviors as well as what they communicated about hysterectomy with each other. Twenty-two educated Caucasian couples participated in the study.

Health care dilemmas for women with serious mental illness.

Women with serious mental illness are a population at risk because of their invisibility. A comprehensive and critical literature review documents the issues and gaps in this aspect of the health care environment for women. A conceptual model outlines the current health-related risks for women with serious mental illness.

Explorations of close friendship: a concept analysis.

Friendship is a meaningful and highly significant human activity. Every psychiatric nurse would acknowledge the value of friendship to mental health. But what is friendship? Development of theoretical understanding and research based interventions using friendship are hampered by inconsistent definitions of friendship.