The Difficult Conversations Show

TAFP's Jonathan Nelson talks with Paul Tatum, MD, director of the Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship at the University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread through our communities, frontline physicians like family doctors find themselves having many difficult conversations with patients and their families. That would be tough on its own, but in this situation, all the relevant information seems to be constantly changing. The ability to have those conversations with compassion and comfort is a challenge in such stressful times. Dr. Tatum offers several resources for physicians and their staff members.
Resources mentioned in the show

• VitalTalk: COVID Ready Communication Playbook
  VitalTalk is a group of communication specialists who collaborate to offer a communication guide for complex issues that can be shared with office staff, especially phone staff and nursing teams.
• CAPC COVID-19 Symptom Management Protocols
  The Center to Advance Palliative Care provides a wide COVID-19 resources. The one Dr. Tatum discusses most is the Symptom Management Protocols.
• NHPCO COVID-19 Shared Decision-Making Tool
  The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization offers this tool to help physicians, patients, and their families discuss risk for seriously ill patients including conversations about advance directives.
• CPPCD ICU Shared Decision-Making Guide for Life Support
  The Colorado Program for Patient-Centered Decisions offers a decision aid for patients considering life support in the setting of critical resource shortages.
• PREPARE for Your Care Medical Planning Guide
  Among other resources, PREPARE for Your Care provides a COVID-19 advance care planning guide your office team can share with patients who can then complete the guide on their own.
• Advance Care Planning Conversation Guide
  The San Francisco VA health Care System Hospice and Palliative Care Service offers this guide for use with outpatients at high risk of developing COVID-19 complications.