TIRBO 58: Difficult cases

Melissa Bridges, director of PA fellowships at Atrium Health and president of the Association of Post-graduate PA Programs (APPAP), chats with us (Bryan is president of APGAP, the Association of Post Graduate APRN programs) about PA/NP residencies/fellowships in critical care. Le ... Show More

Andrew Schulman, medical musician, former ICU patient, and president of the Medical Musician Initiative, tells us how music can help the critically ill. Learn more at the Intensive Care Academy! 

From constipation to hepatorenal syndrome. Fan favorite Elliot Tapper (@ebtapper, @ebtapper), gastroenterologist, transplant hepatologist, academic chief of hepatology, and director of the cirrhosis program at the University of Michigan, returns to answer a grab-bag of GI questio ... Show More

When is it simply avarice to profit at the expense of public health? 

Nearly a decade since MPs in Westminster voted against allowing terminally ill people to end their own life, assisted dying is climbing back up the political agenda. The Health and Social Care Committee is due to publish the first report of its kind on the subject after a year-lo ... Show More

Each year, millions of people get sick or die from diseases caused by their own unhealthy behavior. Getting people to change their bad habits – to quit smoking, eat better, or exercise – can be extremely hard. But what if we paid them?  

Every time we admit or care for a critically ill patient, we must consider their risk for deep venous thrombosis, or DVT. Many of our patients are at higher risk for DVT than the general population, but anticoagulants are not wholly benign drugs. What do we do? How do we decide w ... Show More

It is winter and that means cardiac arrests coming in with extremely low body temperatures after environmental exposure. How do you treat these patients? How do you rewarm if you don't have bypass? 

When tragedies happen, it's easy to wonder if there's any meaning to suffering. 

When a hospital closes in a rural area, it’s a big deal. But are all patients affected equally? We look at new research on the unexpected outcomes of traveling farther for care. 

For most of the big moments in life, we have rituals — proposals, weddings, births, graduations, and anniversaries. We know how to talk about them, how to celebrate them, how to honor them. But there's one moment we all face that lots of people don't know how to deal with: dying. ... Show More

Palliative physician B.J. Miller asks: Is there a better way to think about dying? And can death be beautiful?  

When it comes to end-of-life medical care, getting it right can be hard — even for doctors.  Bapu Jena discusses surprising research on how we can live better - and maybe longer - before we die.