GeriPal

For this week's podcast, we interview Anna Chodos, Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine and Division of Geriatrics at UCSF, about her work in creating the Optimizing Aging Collaborative. The collaborative's goal is to enhance and unify care of older adults in the community by creating a unique partnerships between public, human service, and academic organizations.

The Optimizing Aging Collaborative at UCSF, which was founded in July 2015 as a Geriatric Workforce Enhancement Program (GWEP) by the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).  The collaborative includes a broad array of experts to provide education and innovative services that address older adults’ health, social, and legal needs, that hopefully other cities can replicate.

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Transcript of the podcast:

Eric: Welcome to the GeriPal Podcast. This is Eric Widera.

Alex: This is Alex Smith.

Er…

by: Carly Benner Zapata, MD, MPH (@carly_zapata7)

Last week’s issue of the New England Journal of Medicine featured an article authored by a physician at San Quentin Prison, a maximum-security correctional facility just 30 minutes north of San Francisco. In the piece, Dr. Vanjani describes the profound impact of incarceration on the health of prisoners, specifically related to discrimination, loss of social support, and lack of control over basic daily activities. This issue is particularly acute for those who not only live in prison, but who also have serious medical illness and will likely die in prison.

As Dr. Brie Williams and others have described, the prison population is aging quickly and the prison healthcare system (just like the rest of the US healthcare system) is struggling to manage the challenges that come with caring for the elderly1. The challenge is even more daunting in this setting because of the unique structural and social settings of prison. For instance, commun…

On today's podcast, we interview Steve Pantilat about his new book "Life After the Diagnosis: Expert Advice on Living Well with Serious Illness for Patients and Caregivers."  Steve is a Professor of Medicine, the Department of Medicine at UC San Francisco, Kates-Burnard and Hellman Distinguished Professor in Palliative Care, and Founding Director, the UCSF Palliative Care Program.  

In his book, Steve writes to patients and family members coping with serious illnesses about the difficult decisions they face in a convoluted medical system, giving them practical advice on a wide range of common concerns.   We talk with Steve about how he came up with the idea of the book, his views on living well and what a "good death is", the role that hope plays in decision making, and the language that we use in medicine that can easily be misunderstood.

Steve can also be heard during his recent appearance at the Commonwealth Club of California (click here for the link) on o…