My last placement was for cardio at the RPH Oncology ward. I experienced some difficulty with managing the psychological implications of one particular patient's family.
67 yo malay lady with progressive breast cancer
Her English was very limited, yet her son spoke and understood English well
The patient was previously completely independent prior to admission. During the chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment she began requiring a WZF to amb and needed MUCH encouragement to amb, continue to perform all her transfers independently and SOOB.
To encourage this I educated her son to ensure the pt cont to be mobile.
However, the pt began to rapidly deteriorate. She soon did not want to amb to the toilet and SOOB or sitting upright was even too much for her.
The doctors informed me to no longer treat the pt as she did not have long to live.
It was very hard to discontinue treating this lady as her son was in denial. Due to the edu of the benefits of mobilising the pt etc. he was still asking that I see her and spend much time with her. I had other pt's that were my priority and knew that the pt would not tolerate bed ex's, sitting up etc.
How would you go about telling this womans son that you will no longer be seeing his mum/ treating her....
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment