Lessons Learned from Your Patient's Family After Their Loved One Has Died

Our time spent with patients and their families should not end with the transfer of the patient to hospice care. The patient may even resist such a transfer, feeling abandoned by their medical oncology team. Treatment for treatment’s sake is really bad medical care. Doing an effective job of preparing the patient and family for end of life needs to be the ultimate goal as treatments begin to no longer work. Due to having no contact with families after the patients have died results in losing teaching moments for the team that provided her breast cancer treatment. There is great value in incorporating the family’s needs and understanding into the treatment planning process from the beginning so they are better prepared at the end of her life and beyond.