Sixteen percent of Americans who have heard the term "palliative care" believe it means giving up. Thirty-eight percent think it is the same thing as hospice. Neither is true.
Dr. Nanos sits down with Dr. James Ross, founder of the Brain and Body Institute in Tulsa. He is a board-certified family physician who is also board certified in hospice and palliative medicine, and across nearly 25 years he has delivered thousands of babies and later sat with those same families at a grandmother's bedside.
He offers the sentence that clears up most of the confusion: all hospice is palliative care, but not all palliative care is hospice. Palliative care is about quality of life at any stage of serious illness, given alongside treatment meant to cure. As he puts it, while medicine works on helping you live longer, palliative care comes behind and asks what would help you live better.
And the research is not soft on this. In a landmark 2010 trial, patients with metastatic lung cancer who received early palliative care alongside standard care had better quality of life, better mood, less aggressive treatment at the end of life, and longer survival. Less aggressive care, and they lived longer.
Then the part that should move people. Half of hospice patients die within 17 days of enrolling. About one in four signs up in the final week of life. One documented reason for that delay is families resisting what feels like giving up. The misconception is not harmless.
Also: the question he asks patients that reframes everything, which is who do you want to be when you die, and what you do with the answer.
This is The Kind Revolution — where we bridge science, compassion, and courage.
Hosted by Dr. Georgine Nanos, MD, MPH | Kind Health Group, Encinitas, CA
Guest: Dr. James Ross, MD | Brain and Body Institute, Tulsa, OK
For education, not medical advice.
