“The author lays blame across the board, from patients with unrealistic expectations and doctors who don't explain treatment options fully, from profit-driven hospitals to an insurance bureaucracy that spurns routine health maintenance. Martensen makes his case with clear, compelling writing that never flinches from his conclusion that some things you just can't win the battle against; you can only hope for quality of life until the end.” – Publisher’s Weekly

Robert Martensen, MD, Senior Advisor to the Cunniff-Dixon Foundation, presented excerpts from his new book, A Life Worth Living: A Doctor's Reflections on Illness in a High-Tech Era which offered a unique perspective on how to maintain dignity and resilience in the face of illness and death.

Through stories from the voices of patients and health care providers, Dr Martensen presented the difficulties faced right now in the current healthcare system to prepare patients and their families for the transition to the end of life and to implement strategies to provide a more personal level of patient care and thereby enhance the quality of remaining life for terminally ill patients.

“When someone is diagnosed with a chronic, acute, or exacerbated illness, there is the need to look at a variety of possibilities or treatment and there is an essential need to have a therapeutic alliance with their physicians,” said Dr. Martensen. “That can only happen when patients and their physicians can sit down and discuss what is most important to the patient to maintain a quality of life that means something to them.”

Dr Martensen emphasized the need for education – from healthcare professionals to patients – on how language, information and methods of communication are integral to the choices made in end of life decisions.

“Our speech within all aspects of medicine, the hospitals, the medical schools, private practices, and pharmaceutical companies, has become infused with commercial values in the last 30 years,” cautioned Dr. Martensen.

Following on this event, in Spring 2009 NYAM and Cunniff-Dixon will be hosting one-day palliative care continuing medical education symposium designed for physicians in all specialties to enhance one’s understanding, comfort level, and skill in working with patients who are at or near the end of their lives.

This symposium, ‘The Art of Medicine at the End of Life’ will allow participants to enhance their skills in recognizing appropriate times to suggest palliative care or hospice to patients and their families; gain basic understanding of common legal and ethical considerations in palliative care; and, gain basic knowledge concerning common psychiatric aspects of terminal illness as they affect patients and their caregivers.

Please visit www.nyam.org/events for updated information.

Posted on 12/12/2008

Contact:
Andrew J. Martin
Director of Communications
The New York Academy of Medicine
1216 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10029
212-822-7285
www.nyam.org