Surgeon perspectives on palliative care: Are we the barrier to better care?

Surgeon perspectives on palliative care: Are we the barrier to better care?
The Journal of Clinical Ethics; by Sean J Donohue, Baddr A Shakhsheer, Peter Phung, Anthony W Kim, Monica Zell, Sean C Wightman; Fall '25
Surgeons face numerous perioperative challenges when caring for patients with life-threatening or chronic diseases. Palliative care has been associated with an average reduction of $3,237 per admission, as well as reduction in emergency department visits, hospital admissions, and hospital length of stay.  [Also,] ... palliative interventions have shown a 26 percent relative risk reduction in intensive care unit length of stay and overall alignment of patients' and families' goals of care. It remains pervasive in surgical culture that operative intervention and palliation are mutually exclusive and occur sequentially, rather than concurrently. Preoperative palliative care consultations in surgical patients occur less than 1 percent of the time. Preoperative palliative care may serve to help explore, clarify, and document quality-of-life values and preferences, in hopes of better promoting goal-concordant care.