Podiatric Implications for End of Life

End-of-life care is a unique area of medicine that emphasizes holistic patient-centered care. It requires clinicians to consider a patient’s mental, emotional, spiritual, social and physical comforts and engage patients and their families in complex discussions and decisions. It is an area of medicine that requires sensitivity in communication to respond to a wide range of emotions from patients and their families. Given these intricacies, it is essential that healthcare professional trainees, including podiatric physicians are exposed early in their careers so they can be better equipped to address EOL situations effectively. An acknowledgement that medical needs of patients do not occur in a vacuum allows for the inference that interprofessional and interdisciplinary care teams are needed for caring an aging population against a backdrop of increasing prevalence of chronic illness. This accepted recognized known indicates that many physicians to include podiatric physicians, will encounter patients with palliative care needs. To avoid both system and specific errors centered on patient care continuing podiatric medical education in palliative care is essential to prepare medical clinicians for the demands of end-of-life medical care through the lens of mental, emotional, spiritual, social physical treatments for patients in need.

CME (Credits: 1)