Behind The Knife: The Surgery Podcast

Welcome to the first Surgical Palliative Care Journal Club, the second of a six-part series focused on the integration of palliative care into the practice of surgery.  Join us as we discuss the first study of how to best integrate palliative medicine principles into the care of trauma ICU patients.  We then tackle the question:  Why are surgeons often unwilling to discontinue life-sustaining treatments in the post-operative period?   We discuss a 2013 study about “surgical buy-in” and review alternatives to making “informal contracts” with patients before surgery.   References: Mosenthal AC, Murphy PA, Barker LK, et al. Changing the culture around end-of-life care in the trauma intensive care unit. J Trauma. 2008;64(6):1587-1593. doi:10.1097/TA.0b013e318174f112. Schwarze ML, Redmann AJ, Alexander GC, Brasel KJ. Surgeons expect patients to buy-in to post-operative life support preoperatively: results of a national survey. Crit Care Med. 2013;41(1):1-8. doi: 10.1097/CCM.0b013e31826a4650. Dr. Red Hoffman (@