Ercast

Medical Ethicist Abbott, MD walks us through her perspectives on myriad ethical quandaries including:  How to approach discordance between a patient's written wishes and a family member who says do the opposite, the ethics of operating on demented patients who have an acute life threatening critical illness, a case of a young man with an unsurvivable brain bleed and whether or not to extubate him before the family enters the resus room, strategies to skillfully guide families through withdrawal of life support, and the real consequences of restrictive hospital visitation policies.Guest Bio: Dr. Jean Abbott is a medical ethicist and faculty at the Center for Bioethics and Humanities and Core Faculty, Master of Science in Palliative Care, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. She is also Professor Emerita University of Colorado School of Medicine, and 30 year veteran of the emergency department.  Not part of her CV but germane to this show...she was my attending when I was a resident in the 1