MGH campus transformation
MGH’s campus transformation continues with major renovation work. Patients and visitors can expect to experience noise, hallway closures and detours around the hospital. Learn more about our campus transformation.
MGH’s campus transformation continues with major renovation work. Patients and visitors can expect to experience noise, hallway closures and detours around the hospital. Learn more about our campus transformation.
As a hospitalist at Michael Garron Hospital (MGH), Dr. Nadia Incardona witnesses first-hand how Substitute Decision Makers (SDMs) struggle to make complex decisions when their loved ones are admitted with a serious illness.
She sees children faced with making decisions for a parent and families who can’t agree about what decision to make.
“The challenge of making a decision on behalf of another person is hard at the best of times. It can be even more challenging when you have to do this in a stressful and sometimes frightening context of an acute illness,” says Dr. Incardona.
Dr. Incardona sees a real need to help patients and SDMs prepare for these situations.
This is where Advance Care Planning (ACP) can help – and National ACP Day on April 16 is a great time to start.
“If you haven’t had a conversation with your SDM, maybe now’s the time, says Dr. Incardona. “If you’re a health care provider and you want to make this part of your practice, maybe this is the year.”
It was through Dr. Incardona’s experiences as a hospitalist and now as an emergency physician that motivated her to go back to the University of Toronto to obtain a Masters in Health Sciences (Bioethics) and get more involved with Advance Care Planning.
In her role as a Clinical Advisor to Hospice Palliative Care Ontario (HPCO) Advance Care Planning and Health Care Consent group, Dr. Incardona continues to work towards educating health care providers and the public to become more comfortable with having these important conversations – and make them a routine part of patient care.
Dr. Incardona offers five pieces of advice to guide your conversations:
Related Information
What is Advance Care Planning?
A series of conversations that: