Literature Review

Do industry payments influence end-of-life cancer care? Medscape; by Megan Brooks; 10/23/26 Patients treated by oncologists who receive personal payments from drug manufacturers are more likely to receive aggressive end-of-life care, a large Medicare study found. ... The analysis raises questions about whether financial relationships between oncologists and drug manufacturers may contribute to potentially burdensome care near the end-of-life, although the observational study cannot establish causation. The possibility that industry relationships may influence treatment decisions near the end-of-life is “profoundly upsetting, but not at all surprising,” Kerin Adelson, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, commented during the session.

Your living will could get you too much care, or too little: the living will doctors misread KevinMD.com; podcast by KevinMD; 10/21/26 When you can’t speak for yourself, a living will is supposed to speak for you. Too often, it doesn’t. Seventy percent of U.S. adults don’t have one, and those who do often keep it in a drawer at home. ...  80 percent of physicians equate the mere presence of an advance directive with a do not resuscitate (DNR) order. Mirarchi calls it the lethal glance, a split-second read by a clinician who has never met the patient. The errors go both ways: resuscitating people who never wanted it and failing to resuscitate people who chose full code. ...

Psycho-oncology and palliative care: treating the person, not just the tumor CancerNetwork; by Daniel C. McFarland, DO and Ramy Sedhom, MD; 10/19/26 In this episode of Oncology On the Go, Daniel C. McFarland, DO, spoke with Ramy Sedhom, MD, about how to build a cancer practice where symptom management and emotional support are part of routine oncology care rather than an outside referral. ... McFarland emphasized that therapeutic presence and the ongoing patient-clinician relationship are healing, even though they are difficult to measure or reimburse. He described the use of shared medical visits in his practice and the value of weekly team meetings that include therapists, chaplains, and other staff.  

[Lisbon, Portugal] Closing the gap: Nurses call for action to pediatric palliative careeHospice; by Joana Mendes; 10/12/26On 6 October 2026, the Lisbon School of Nursing at the University of Lisbon hosted the international webinar “Closing the Gap: A Nursing Call to Action for Pediatric Palliative Care”, bringing together 112 participants, predominantly Portuguese nurses, around a shared commitment: advancing equitable, accessible and high-quality perinatal, neonatal and pediatric palliative care.

What physician mothers miss while caring for everyone elseKevinMD; by Loryn Kromrey; 10/7/26Medicine and motherhood were intertwined from the very beginning. My water broke while I was in the operating room with my first baby, and he was born just two hours later... As physician mothers, we spend so much of our lives taking care of other people’s families. As an anesthesiologist, I had the privilege of caring for children and adults during some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives. I found so much purpose in my work, and I took that responsibility seriously. But it also came with immense pressure and days that pushed me to my limits. Stepping away gave me the perspective to see how often my own children sometimes got what was left of me after I had spent the day taking care of everyone else. I don’t say that with guilt. It’s simply something I couldn’t see until life forced me to slow down.

Free webinar for physicians and healthcare professionals: Reducing hospital readmissions and reducing Hospital Readmissions and Length of stay in advanced illness patients VITAS Healthcare; Press Release; 9/14/26

BlackDoctor launches first-ever medical advisory board  BlackDoctor, Chicago, IL; Press Release by BlackDoctor; 10/1/26 BlackDoctor, the leading health and wellness platform for Black America, today announced its first Medical Advisory Board. The board brings together eight physicians from across the country. They will help inform the company’s product and content development strategy for clinicians, advance its health education efforts, help shape new products and tools and facilitate strategic engagements across the healthcare ecosystem. ...  It gives the company, which reaches 30 million people each year, a formal layer of clinical oversight from physicians who understand the challenges facing Black patients and clinicians with specialities spanning cardiovascular health, cancer, mental health, kidney disease, clinical trials, dermatology and vision care.

People say they want to die at home. I think about it differently. Guest essay International New York Times; by Daniela J. Lamas; 9/29/26What is a good death? We tend to imagine a good death as one that takes place at home, far from the sounds and smells and lines and tubes of an intensive care unit, like the one where I work. I believed this for many years. But after a decade as an I.C.U. doctor, I've come to think we need a different definition of a good death. A death at home can be the right thing for a patient and his or her family. But it is not inherently better. An I.C.U. death can be peaceful and dignified. A death at home can be panicked and painful. Yet we have built a culture, and quality metrics, that treat I.C.U. care at the end of life as a failure. ... "dying." But sometimes intensive care is the right place to care for a dying patient.

How caregivers can prepare for a loved one’s final days AARP; by Paul Wynn; 9/28/26 When Dr. Chris Kerr’s mother was dying, he had the kind of experience that can change the way a doctor thinks about death. Kerr had spent decades caring for people at the end of life as a palliative care doctor in the Buffalo, New York, area. But when his mother, Shirley, became seriously ill, he experienced death through the lens of a son and a caregiver... “My lasting memory of my mother is her strong connection to her parents,” says Kerr, author of Death Is But a Dream and chief medical officer of Hospice and Palliative Care Buffalo. “It took me a while, but I realized that I had to stop trying to play doctor and just be there for her.”

A new way to measure nursing productivity: Total labor cost per admission HFMA - Health Operations Management; by Sylvain Trepanier, DNP, RN, CENP and Cynthia Salisbury, MSN, RN, NEA-BC; 9/25/26An innovative model for measuring nurse productivity better accounts for patients’ care needs and the team-based nature of nursing care. ... Leaders at Providence [a large regional health system based in Renton, Washington] decided it was important to create space for nurses to define for themselves how to deliver care most effectively in the acute care setting. Nurses were invited to deconstruct their current role and create a new model of care based on the needs of their patients, with an appropriate distribution of patient care across a collaborative team.

Hispanic Heritage Month 2026: resources for hospice and palliative care