Communication about end-of-life care between language-discordant patients and clinicians: insights from medical interpreters.

Background: Communication about health care and especially end-of-life care is difficult for clinicians and patients when they do not speak the same language. Our purpose was to improve understanding of how to approach discussions between language-discordant patients and clinicians about terminal or life-threatening illness.

Methods: We conducted a qualitative study with 4 focus groups with 43 professional medical interpreters.

Treatment preferences for resuscitation and critical care among homeless persons.

Context: Homeless people are at increased risk of critical illness and are less likely to have surrogate decision makers when critically ill. Consequently, clinicians must make decisions independently or with input from others such as ethics committees or guardians. No prior studies have examined treatment preferences of homeless to guide such decision makers.