Life After Diagnosis: Focusing on Quality of Life
In February 2017, Dr. Steve Pantilat, director of the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center’s palliative care program, released a new book, “Life After the Diagnosis.” Since the book launched, it’s garnered a lot of positive attention.
In “Life After the Diagnosis,” Dr. Pantilat provides a step-by-step guide on how to handle a serious illness from the moments after diagnosis onward. Alongside a chapter dedicated to palliative care, he writes about what questions to ask your doctor, how to control pain and other symptoms and how to be a caregiver.
Recently, the Las Vegas Review Journal caught up with Dr. Pantilat as he was speaking at a Society of Hospital Medicine meeting. The article tells several stories of palliative care at work, but also discusses how effectively the state of Nevada is delivering palliative care. As it turns out, they’re doing pretty well.
Last year, CAPC gave Nevada an A for its palliative care coverage, compared to the nationwide average of a B. Of Nevada’s 12 hospitals with more than 50 beds, 11 have palliative care units (91.6 percent). Nationwide, 1,591 hospitals of 2,393 offer palliative care programs (66.5 percent).
To read more, click here. To listen to a podcast starring Dr. Pantilat, click here.