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Would you be surprised if this patient died?: Preliminary exploration of first and second year residents' approach to care decisions in critically ill patients

BACKGROUND: How physicians approach decision-making when caring for critically ill patients is poorly understood. This study aims to explore how residents think about prognosis and approach care decisions when caring for seriously ill, hospitalized patients. METHODS: Qualitative study where we condu...

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Autores principales: Johnson, Daniel C, Kutner, Jean S, Armstrong, John D
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2003
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC149224/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12529181
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-684X-2-1
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author Johnson, Daniel C
Kutner, Jean S
Armstrong, John D
author_facet Johnson, Daniel C
Kutner, Jean S
Armstrong, John D
author_sort Johnson, Daniel C
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: How physicians approach decision-making when caring for critically ill patients is poorly understood. This study aims to explore how residents think about prognosis and approach care decisions when caring for seriously ill, hospitalized patients. METHODS: Qualitative study where we conducted structured discussions with first and second year internal medicine residents (n = 8) caring for critically ill patients during Medical Intensive Care Unit Ethics and Discharge Planning Rounds. Residents were asked to respond to questions beginning with "Would you be surprised if this patient died?" RESULTS: An equal number of residents responded that they would (n = 4) or would not (n = 4) be surprised if their patient died. Reasons for being surprised included the rapid onset of an acute illness, reversible disease, improving clinical course and the patient's prior survival under similar circumstances. Residents reported no surprise with worsening clinical course. Based on the realization that their patient might die, residents cited potential changes in management that included clarifying treatment goals, improving communication with families, spending more time with patients and ordering fewer laboratory tests. Perceived or implied barriers to changes in management included limited time, competing clinical priorities, "not knowing" a patient, limited knowledge and experience, presence of diagnostic or prognostic uncertainty and unclear treatment goals. CONCLUSIONS: These junior-level residents appear to rely on clinical course, among other factors, when assessing prognosis and the possibility for death in severely ill patients. Further investigation is needed to understand how these factors impact decision-making and whether perceived barriers to changes in patient management influence approaches to care.
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spelling pubmed-1492242003-02-20 Would you be surprised if this patient died?: Preliminary exploration of first and second year residents' approach to care decisions in critically ill patients Johnson, Daniel C Kutner, Jean S Armstrong, John D BMC Palliat Care Research Article BACKGROUND: How physicians approach decision-making when caring for critically ill patients is poorly understood. This study aims to explore how residents think about prognosis and approach care decisions when caring for seriously ill, hospitalized patients. METHODS: Qualitative study where we conducted structured discussions with first and second year internal medicine residents (n = 8) caring for critically ill patients during Medical Intensive Care Unit Ethics and Discharge Planning Rounds. Residents were asked to respond to questions beginning with "Would you be surprised if this patient died?" RESULTS: An equal number of residents responded that they would (n = 4) or would not (n = 4) be surprised if their patient died. Reasons for being surprised included the rapid onset of an acute illness, reversible disease, improving clinical course and the patient's prior survival under similar circumstances. Residents reported no surprise with worsening clinical course. Based on the realization that their patient might die, residents cited potential changes in management that included clarifying treatment goals, improving communication with families, spending more time with patients and ordering fewer laboratory tests. Perceived or implied barriers to changes in management included limited time, competing clinical priorities, "not knowing" a patient, limited knowledge and experience, presence of diagnostic or prognostic uncertainty and unclear treatment goals. CONCLUSIONS: These junior-level residents appear to rely on clinical course, among other factors, when assessing prognosis and the possibility for death in severely ill patients. Further investigation is needed to understand how these factors impact decision-making and whether perceived barriers to changes in patient management influence approaches to care. BioMed Central 2003-01-15 /pmc/articles/PMC149224/ /pubmed/12529181 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-684X-2-1 Text en Copyright © 2003 Johnson et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article: verbatim copying and redistribution of this article are permitted in all media for any purpose, provided this notice is preserved along with the article's original URL.
spellingShingle Research Article
Johnson, Daniel C
Kutner, Jean S
Armstrong, John D
Would you be surprised if this patient died?: Preliminary exploration of first and second year residents' approach to care decisions in critically ill patients
title Would you be surprised if this patient died?: Preliminary exploration of first and second year residents' approach to care decisions in critically ill patients
title_full Would you be surprised if this patient died?: Preliminary exploration of first and second year residents' approach to care decisions in critically ill patients
title_fullStr Would you be surprised if this patient died?: Preliminary exploration of first and second year residents' approach to care decisions in critically ill patients
title_full_unstemmed Would you be surprised if this patient died?: Preliminary exploration of first and second year residents' approach to care decisions in critically ill patients
title_short Would you be surprised if this patient died?: Preliminary exploration of first and second year residents' approach to care decisions in critically ill patients
title_sort would you be surprised if this patient died?: preliminary exploration of first and second year residents' approach to care decisions in critically ill patients
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC149224/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12529181
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1472-684X-2-1
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