GeriPal

This week we talk with BJ Miller, hospice and palliative care physician, public speaker, and now author with Shoshana Berger of the book "A Beginner's Guide to the End."

As we note on the podcast, BJ is about as close as we get to a celebrity in Hospice and Palliative Care.  His TED Talk "What Really Matters at the End of Life" has been viewed more than 9 million times.  As we discuss on the Podcast, this has changed BJ's life, and he spends most of his working time engaged in public speaking, being the public "face" of the hospice and palliative care movement.

The book he and Berger wrote is filled to the brim with practical advice.  I mean, nuts and bolts practical advice.  Things like:
How to clean out not only your emotional house but your physical house (turns out there are services for that!)Posting about your illness on social media (should you post to Facebook)What is the difference between a funeral home and mortuaryCan I afford to die?  …

This week's podcast is all about the intersection of geriatrics, palliative care, advanced care planning and surgery with our guest Dr. Vicky Tang.  Vicky is an assistant professor and researcher here at UCSF.  We talk about her local and national efforts focused on this intersection, including:
Her JAMA Surgery article that showed 3 out of 4 older adults undergoing high risk surgery had no advance care planning (ACP) documentation. Prehab clinics and how ACP fits into these clinicsThe Geriatric Surgery Verification Quality Improvement Program whose goal is to set the standards for geriatric surgical care including ACP discussions prior to surgeryHow frailty fits in and how to assess it (including this paper from JAGS on the value of the chair raise test) So take a listen and check out some of those links.  For those who want to take a deeper dive into how GeriPal and surgery fit together, check out these other podcasts: Zara Cooper on Trauma Surgery, Geriatrics, and Palliative Car…