Health stories in the news — April 5th

The palliative doctor who decided to fight on

Anemona Hartocollis had a riveting article in the New York Times over the weekend about Dr. Desiree Pardi, a leading palliative care doctor who, when her breast cancer recurred, “angrily refused” the advice she had given to her own patients with incurable cancer.

“While she and her colleagues had been trained to talk about accepting death, and making it as comfortable as possible, she wanted to try treatments even if they were painful and offered only a 2 percent chance of survival. When the usual cycles of chemotherapy failed to slow the cancer, she found a doctor who would bombard her with more. She force-fed herself through a catheter and drank heavy milkshakes to keep up her weight.”

To learn more:

• Read Hartocollis’ article: Helping Patients Face Death, She Fought to Live
  

  © 2009 Thomas Harrison http://servicedogcentral.org

Service dogs for vets with post-traumatic stress disorder

Also in the New York Times is an article by Janie Lorber about reports that service dogs are helping veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder recover. Lorber writes:

“. . . the federal government, not usually at the forefront of alternative medical treatments, is spending several million dollars to study whether scientific research supports anecdotal reports that the dogs might speed recovery from the psychological wounds of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

To learn more:

• Read Lorber’s article: For the Battle-Scarred, Comfort at Leash’s End.’

(PHOTO: For any reuse or distribution of this image, please attribute with at least © 2009 Thomas Harrison along with the license information and a link to Service Dog Central at http://servicedogcentral.org)

National Autism Awareness Month

April is National Autism Awareness Month. Listen to six men and women talk about living with autism-spectrum disorders at New York Times Patient Voices Web page.

To learn more:

• Visit the Autism Society’s National Autism Awareness Month Web page.

Tags: Autism, End-of-Life Care, Palliative Care, PTSD, Veterans

Category: News