218 Vol. 41 No. 1 January 2011Schedule with Abstracts

Objectives1. Define two requisites for a ‘‘good’’ death.2. Evaluate the arts as personal and professional

resource.Science may give us the tools for curing, but it isthe arts that give us the tools for caring. Whetherparticipant or observer, engaging in the arts is of-ten a catalyst for initiating reflective practice, as-sisting in the search for meaning, enabling grief,and inciting change. Even the most seasoned cli-nicians can gain insights from dialogue with thearts. Furthermore, the arts are antidotes to burn-out and compassion fatigue, sparking reconnec-tion to the creativity, renewal, and joy in one’schosen work. This presentation demonstrateshow the arts challenge, instruct, and support usin our endeavor to stay ever present with anoth-er’s suffering and to better understand our own.

DomainSocial Aspects of Care; Spiritual, Religious andExistential Aspects of care; Cultural Aspects ofCare

Looking Through Different Eyes: WeavingStories of Hope and Healing in the Workof Hospice, Renewal, and RitualSherry Showalter, PhD MMSc LCSW BCD,Tarpon Springs, FL.(Showalter has disclosed no relevant financialrelationships.)

Objectives1. Recognize and discuss the importance of the

stories in hospice work as tools for renewaland healing.

2. Describe insights from stories by lookingthrough both a personal and profession lens.

3. Recognize and honor tradition and one’s ownpersonal journey and its unique role in em-powering enhanced care.

4. Renew a sense of one’s own gifts in healingand hope through ritual.

The presenter will guide the audience ona shared journey of ‘‘Looking Through DifferentEyes’’ and weaving stores of hope and healing.Professional caregivers will be given the opportu-nity to rest, to renew, and to hear stories whilefinding healing ways for their own path of cumu-lative losses. This session offers the opportunityto look and listen to stories, the humor in heart-aches, and how professionals can identify thegifts and the signs in themselves of stress and

trouble. Practical tips for taking care of self aswell as others will also be discovered and remem-bered. The plenary will end with a ritual of heal-ing intended to leave participants lighter for theconference and for their own work where somuch is given to so many. Healing Heartaches,Stories of Loss and Life, a new book written bythe presenter will be available for sale at the con-ference with a book signing hosted by theAAHPM.

DomainPsychological and Psychiatric Aspects of Care;Social Aspects of Care; Spiritual, Religious, andExistential Aspects of Care; Cultural Aspects ofCare

10:45e11:45 am

Concurrent Sessions

How Long, Doc? Prognostic Prediction andCommunication: What We Know, What WeDon’t Know, What We Think We Know, andWhat We Do with It (400)David Ross Russell, MD FAACP, ProHealth Physi-cians, Wallingford, CT.(Russell has disclosed no relevant financialrelationships.)

Objectives1. Formulate prognostic estimates for patients

with life-limiting conditions, while under-standing the limitations of such estimates.

2. Recognize the biases that physicians bring toprognostication, and their discussions ofprognosis.

3. Identify a communication strategy for discus-sing prognostic information with patientsand families.

Medicare hospice benefit rules require physiciansto attest to a prognosis of 6 months or less. This,however, is only one reason to have a good under-standing of prognosis. Our patients and their fam-ilies need and expect us to be able to help themboth with planning treatments appropriate totheir disease progression and their own prepara-tion for the end of life. An understanding of thelikely prognosis or more appropriately the range

Vol. 41 No. 1 January 2011 219Schedule with Abstracts

of prognoses is crucial to this process. This presen-tationwill review the current evidence for availableprognostic tools and their effectiveness in generaland in specific conditions such as heart disease,liver failure, renal failure, and dementia. It will re-view the literatureonhowphysicians interpret thatdata and how they communicate it to patients andit will look at thebiases that have been shown to ex-ist in how physicians present that information. Itwill look at what patients and family membershaveexpressed in termsofwishing for informationregardingprognosis.Finally, itwillpresentamodelfor a patient-centered approach to the discussionof prognosis that can be applied in the clinical set-ting, taking account of patient variability in desirefor explicit information.

DomainStructure and Processes of Care; Psychologicaland Psychiatric Aspects of Care; Social Aspectsof Care; Spiritual, Religious, and Existential As-pects of Care; Cultural Aspects of Care; Ethicaland Legal Aspects of Care

The Interface Between Oncology andPalliative Care: Identifying Opportunitiesfor Oncology Palliative Care Collaborationin Palliative Care Consultation (401)Esme Finlay, MD, New Mexico VAMC andUniversity of New Mexico Health Science Cen-ter, Albuquerque, NM. Jamie Von Roenn, MD,Northwestern University, Chicago, IL. Kathy Pla-kovic, FNP AHPCN�, New York, NY.Kathy Selvaggi, MD MS, West Penn and Alle-gheny Health System Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA.Tracy Balboni, MD MPH, Dana-Farber CancerInstitute, Boston, MA.(All speakers for this session have disclosed norelevant financial relationships with the excep-tion of: Finlay owns $10,000 in stock with Merck;Von Roenn is on the advisory board and re-ceived an honorarium from Gtx; Plakovic is a for-mer employee and received stock from Amgen.)

Objectives1. Define basic oncology terms and indications

for palliative medical oncology treatments inadvanced cancer patients.

2. Describe indications for palliative radiationon-cology treatments in advanced cancer patients.

3. Define principles of effective consultationand communication between oncology andpalliative care teams.

Cancer patients often receive palliative care onlyafter all cancer-directed treatment is complete.However, there are clinical scenarios in whichadvanced cancer patients are referred for pallia-tive care before appropriate oncologic assess-ment. In some cases, simultaneous oncologicand palliative care is necessary to provide opti-mal palliative care to patients. This presentationwill provide an overview of oncology terms andtreatment paradigms as well as a frameworkthat palliative care practitioners can use to deter-mine whether palliative oncologic care is a ne-cessary component of a palliative care plan.Specifically, we will review indications for pallia-tive cancer treatment, advanced cancer casestudies in which oncologists should be a partof a comprehensive palliative care plan, pallia-tive radiation oncology basics, and principlesof collaboration between oncologists and pallia-tive care physicians.

DomainStructure and Processes of Care

Figuring Developmental Disability intothe Calculus of Benefits and Burdensof Life-Prolonging Interventions forChildren (402)Alex Okun, MD FAAHPM, Children’s Hospitalat Montefiore, Bronx, NY. Sarah Friebert, MD,Akron Children’s Hospital, Akron, OH.(All speakers for this session have disclosed norelevant financial relationships.)

Objectives1. Review the spectrum of developmental dis-

abilities affecting children whose existence isalso complicated by life-limiting or life-threat-ening conditions.

2. Discuss the ethical basis for health profes-sionals’ obligations to provide support forfamilies making advance care plans for theirchildren in a collaborative process that in-volves integrating likely benefits and burdensof life-prolonging interventions.

3. Discuss whether the nature of children’s de-velopmental disabilities has value in the calcu-lus of benefits and burdens of specific life-prolonging interventions, citing ethical and