Palliative Care in the Time of Hurricane Harvey

by Ishwaria Subbiah (@IshwariaMD)Trouble BrewingBetween the network news and many institutional emails on hurricane preparations, we at MD Anderson knew were in for something ‘big.’ Harvey made landfall on August 25th as a Category 4 hurricane about 190 miles southwest of Houston. The outer bands brought rain without any major disruptions to our practice. As expected, upon landfall, Harvey rapidly weakened but stalled over Texas. The subsequent two days brought a level of rainfall best described as apocalyptic. The institution’s leaders activated the ‘ride-out’ team where the core essential physicians and staff remained in-house for the duration of the disaster.Bare Bones Palliative Care? Interdisciplinary Team of One‘Skeleton’ staffing seemed inherently counterintuitive to the model of Palliative Care through the interdisciplinary team (IDT) of physicians, Integrative Medicine team, psychologist/counselors, social workers, case managers, and chaplains. Of course, all the bayous and retention ponds were no match for 50 inches of rain that fell in a matter of a few days. So the roles of the IDT were condensed to the Palliative Care staff who were riding out in the hospital. Our in-house Palliative Care ride-out physician, Dr. Marvin Delgado, embraced his several roles and adds how he was open with hi s time, and ensured that he and the patient had “the opportunity to cover aspects of symptom management, the physical, emotional, and spiritual, as well as time to...
Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - Category: Palliative Care Tags: disaster hurricane subbiah The profession weather Source Type: blogs