Perception of palliative medicine by health care professionals at a teaching community hospital: what is the key to a "palliative attitude"?

With growing expense in chronic illness and end-of-life (EOL) care, population-based interventions are needed to reduce the health care cost and improve patients' quality of life. The authors believe that promotion of palliative medicine is one such intervention and this promotion depends on the acceptance of palliative medicine concepts by health care professionals. Perception of palliative medicine in chronic illness and in EOL care by health care professionals was learned in two studies carried out at a teaching community hospital 14 years apart.

Transdermal clonidine in patients with swallowing dysfunction.

Patients with swallowing dysfunction are usually very ill and have a constellation of challenging issues requiring palliation. Accumulation of oropharyngeal secretions leads to a substantial effort of medical teams including doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, and ancillary staff. We present 10 patients successfully treated with application of transdermal clonidine film.