Palliative Care: Recent Success, Tomorrow's Challenges

In a column in yesterday's New York Times titled "Frank Talk about Care at Life's End," Jane Brody ties together some encouraging developments in palliative care in the past week:

• New York's new "Palliative Care Information Act"


• The NEJM study that cancer patients who received palliative care had a better quality of life and lived longer

But Brody also observes that more still needs to be done:

• Help physicians and nurses acquire the expertise they need to hold meaningful end-of-life discussions with their patients


• Improve the poor ability of physicians to determine a patient’s remaining life expectancy