Dr. Anne Mosenthal: The Mother of Surgical Palliative Care

#015 - Join host Dr. Red Hoffman as she interviews Dr. Anne Mosenthal, a trauma surgeon and one of the founding members of the American College of Surgeon's Surgical Palliative Care Task Force (now the Committee on Surgical Palliative Care, which she currently chairs). Her name is synonymous with surgical palliative care in this country. Anne, along with nurse Pat Murphy, wrote some of the earliest papers about how to incorporate palliative care into the surgical and trauma intensive care units. She championed the integrative model of palliative care, which relies upon the surgical team to utilize their primary palliative care skills. She is the co-editor (along with Dr. Geoffrey Dunn) of the recently released textbook entitled Surgical Palliative. Anne served as the Chair of Surgery at Rutgers New Jersey Medical Center for nine years (one of the first women in the country to chair a department of surgery) and recently transitioned into a new role as the Chief Academic Officer of Lahey Hospital and Medical Center. In this episode, she shares her experience as a woman pursuing a career in surgery and notes the lack of female role models during her training. She has been a champion for women in surgery, serving as a mentor to many and eventually winning the Association of Women Surgeon's Olga Jonasson Distinguished Member Award in 2018. She also shares some tips about how to break bad news and how to discuss code status. Lastly, she very graciously accepts all of my fan-girling! As I tell her, many of us would not have the careers that we do if it were not for her leading the way. Listen and learn from one of the very best!

Articles mentioned:
Trauma Care and Palliative Care: Time to Integrate the Two? (2003)
Interdisciplinary model for palliative care in the trauma and surgical intensive care unit: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Demonstration Project for Improving Palliative Care in the Intensive Care Unit (2006)
Integrating palliative care in the surgical and trauma intensive care unit: a report from the Improving Palliative Care in the Intensive Care Unit (IPAL-ICU) Project Advisory Board and the Center to Advance Palliative Care (2012)
To read more about or purchase the recently released Surgical Palliative Care (a must have!), click here.

To learn more about the surgical palliative care community, visit us on twitter @surgpallcare