hospitalist

I think that what you're pointing at is probably the central reason I hated so much of that.

Hospitalist.

Hospitalist work because you're so much dealing with just incompetence in the bureaucracy.

And the fact that an AI agent or series of agents could do that job talking to other AI agents way better than this highly trained person.

So my job got infinitely better when I finished residency and now I'm the attending supervising residents, because now I get to think, I get to interact, I get to teach, and my notes are like four lines.

I am your host.

I'm also the author of the book Prescription for Admission, and I'm a hospitalist.

And this is why I talk about hospitals, all things hospital-based care, so that you as a caregiver have some information and some of my quick tips going into the hospital.

So we talk about a lot of different things here on the Prescription for Admission podcast, things that are directly based in the hospital, things that happened before the hospital.

They were there.

I spoke to the emergency department.

I spoke to the hospitalist.

They are in the hospital.

Mm-hmm.

So we went from five to seven-

Hospitalists

... hospitalists.

Mm-hmm.

My name is Dr. Monique Nugent.

I am a practicing hospitalist and also the author of Prescription for Admission, the book, where I talk about many of the same topics.

Thank you for joining me and enjoy the show.

Welcome back to the Prescription for Admission podcast, where we are helping caregivers learn to navigate hospitals and hospital systems with their loved ones.

I am your host, Dr. Monique Nugent.

I am a hospitalist, so I'm well-versed in hospitals and what goes on there.

And I'm also the author of the book by the same name, Prescription for Admission, where you can find a lot more information about similar topics.

But today I am joined by, I'm very excited for this conversation, Gabby Ciccolini.

And if you need to take breaks, please do.

So when I became a hospitalist, when I decided that I was going to spend my career really focused on health care in a hospital setting, caring for patients and their loved ones in this really unique time in their life where things are changing rapidly and we're trying to stabilize so that we can make a plan for the future.

I didn't really fully grasp how much helping people at the end of their life was going to be a big part of my job.

I understood it because I went through residency and through residency, you learn how to help manage symptoms.

Hospice and palliative care are not the same.

Hospice and palliative care often can be seen on the same continuum, but they're not the same.

And so if your hospitalist is saying, hey, I would like to consult the palliative care team, or if you have your whiskers up saying, hey, is this something that maybe palliative care can help us with? I want you to understand what that means, who these professionals are, and what bringing them into the conversation around caring for your loved one towards the end of their life does.

Palliative care is the specialty in medicine that's really geared towards helping people manage symptoms of discomfort and, yes, symptoms of discomfort throughout the continuum of their illness process.

My name is Dr. Monique Nugent.

I am a practicing hospitalist and also the author of Prescription for Admission, the book, where I talk about many of the same topics.

Thank you for joining me and enjoy the show.

Hi, everybody.

And that's why the education is so important.

Yeah.

And working with your providers, if you're in the hospital, I'm a hospitalist.

I've been helping people towards the end of their life.

And that is a really interesting conversation because I find oftentimes family members are making that choice because there may be a logistic or a financial issue around going straight to hospice, right? And if you find you're in that position where you're thinking, of that phrase, go to rehab to get stronger for hospice.

I want you to sit down with your hospitalist, sit down with your case manager, and really unpack what is happening and how you are supporting the dying patient.

There was this really great article a few years ago called Rehabbed to Death, exploring this experience that people are having going to rehabs and coming back to the hospitals, going to rehabs, trying to get to hospice, going to rehab, you know, kind of as a stopgap between hospital and hospice, or not going into hospitals, going back and forth between hospital and rehab while somebody is actively dying or may need a more nuanced conversation around palliative care, end-of-life care, And so this phenomenon of bouncing between rehabs, I really am hoping that this conversation helps you to avoid some of that.

Because really, when someone is at the end of their life, we really want to focus on their dignity, their comfort, and setting people up for going to and from rehabs.

And that's okay.

The job of your case management team is to know that.

The job of your hospitalist is to come up with a medical plan that is safe and comfortable for your loved one to be transferred to a skilled nursing facility, to a hospice house, back to their long-term care facility.

wherever it is that they're going to do end-of-life support and care.