Vol VIII, Issue 3 Date of Publication: July 02, 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.20529/IJME.2023.007

Views
, PDF Downloads:

Learning to switch gears — Steering palliative care into emergency medicine

Rachana Bhat
Akshaya Ramaswami
Praveen Aggarwal
Abstract:
Emergency care is largely seen as synonymous with resuscitation and saving lives. In most of the developing world where Emergency Medicine (EM) is still evolving, the concept of EM palliative care is alien. Provision of palliative care in such settings poses its own challenges in terms of knowledge gaps, socio-cultural barriers, dismal doctor-to-patient ratio with limited time for communication with patients, and lack of established pathways to provide EM palliative care. Integrating the concept of palliative medicine is crucial for expanding the dimension of holistic, value-based, quality emergency care. However, glitches in decision-making processes, especially in high patient volume settings, may lead to inequalities in care provision, based on socio-financial disparities of patients or premature termination of challenging resuscitations. Pertinent, robust, validated screening tools and guides may assist physicians in tackling this ethical dilemma.


Copyright and license
©Indian Journal of Medical Ethics 2023: Open Access and Distributed under the Creative Commons license ( CC BY-NC-ND 4.0),
which permits only non-commercial and non-modified sharing in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.

Full Text

HTML | PDF

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
Please restrict your comment preferably to 800 words
Comments are moderated. Approval can take up to 48 hours.

Help IJME keep its content free. You can support us from as little as Rs. 500 Make a Donation