Hospice:
Are You Helping Your Minority Hospice Patients Direct Their End-Of-Life Care?
Published on Wed Nov 04, 2009
Racial disparities affect care for the dying, new study shows. Black cancer patients may find that their dying wishes aren't heeded as frequently as their white counterparts. A new study from Boston-based Dana-Farber Cancer Institute found that black cancer patients' end-of-life treatment preferences were followed less frequently than white patients'. White patients who asked to receive aggressive end-of-life care were three times more likely to receive it than black patients with the same requests, according to a release from the Institute. Meanwhile, some black patients who asked not to be resuscitated or put on a ventilator received this treatment anyway and died in an intensive care unit. "End-of-life care discussions appeared to be more effective in ensuring that white patients' treatment preferences were honored," said Holly Prigerson, senior author of the report in The Journal of Clinical Oncology. "We are not saying that black treatment preferences were ignored," she emphasized [...]
