Care of the Dying Patients: Doctors’ Pivotal Job.

Abstract

Many diseases, esp. the chronic diseases, are incurable. That means that for a long time, doctors will be palliating the symptoms and when time comes, they would take responsibility for caring for dying patients. They should
therefore prepare themselves to have discussions with patients and their families, manage their symptoms, support their families, diagnose dying, manage symptoms at the end of life, work in multi-disciplinary team and make
decisions about withholding and withdrawing treatments to void patients’ burden.
Text: Although all doctors work hard to cure ailments and save lives, dying from incurable diseases remain a
basic fact of life. Despite the advent of modern treatments, most diseases in textbook remain incurable although
these are, at best, controllable. Examples include Ischaemic Heart disease, Heart failure, Renal failure and cancer. There are diseases which cause immense burden on patients and are therefore requiring long-term symptom management and nursing support.
In this view, managing terminal phase of incurable diseases and death itself remains a healthcare professional’s
responsibility. In industrialized world and some developing countries like India, Palliative care has taken up that
role but it is identified that providing palliative care is responsibility of all healthcare professionals (1).