"EXCEL" Meeting Minutes
October 19, 2000
 

Participants:
Diana Peirce, Marie Kirn, Ginny Fry, Tim Thompson, Joan Madison, John Campbell.

REGIONAL REPORTS:

Dartmouth:
Palliative Care Program moving forward slowly. Providing consult services. No oncologists participating yet, Tim doesn't want to sign on as an attending physician because it would mean leaving his own patients for too long a period.

Noel Woolrich, RN is the new VNA/VNH Hospice nurse who is to split her time between Dartmouth & home based visits, thus easing transition out of the hospital.

Tim met with MDs from NHHO and they are hungry for contact with Dartmouth, and are unhappy with late discharges and people coming home with very little time to live and no pain or symptom control. They discussed sharing a conference with VT ExCEL.

Springfield:
Springfield Hospital has discussed setting up a Palliative Care Service with Tim, and he will pursue this with Jeff and Dan and others already working in this area.

TASK FORCES:

EMS/DNR:
EMS/DNR Brattleboro Pilot Project is coming to the end of the 3 month pilot time, with no report of incidents of using DNR that we know of. Plans to extend it to cover the state are incomplete at this time, but the committee is meeting soon.

The Vermont Ethics Networks 2 day program on advanced care planning took place in Bennington with 30 people attending, including hospital, home health & hospice personnel. There was a very good response. A similar program will take place in Central VT in January & Rutland in March.

Judith Moyers is coming to speak at the Clefa Club (Professional Womens' Organization) in Burlington on Dec. 11.

Ginny Fry is doing Grand Rounds at Fletcher Allen on Nov. 17, 8-9am on "Sharing Bad News," then at St.Paul's Cathedral 12-1 which is open to the public, on the same subject. All events are sponsored by the Madison-Deane Initiative, which is also trying to bring Amos Bayley, MD from the Balm of Gilead, Birmingham, Ala-- which was featured on the Moyers' series. 125 turned out at Hospice of the Champlain's public panel to discuss the series.

Timothy Quill, MD is interested in coming to our June conference to speak on the theme of "Non-abandonment-- of Patients, Families, Caregivers, Professionals & Community." Date has not been set. Suggestion was made for Joe O'Donnell to speak on the moral education of medical students.

NEXT MEETING:

TUESDAY NOVEMBER 21, 2000
2:00P.M. - 4:00P.M.
VERMONT MEDICAL SOCIETY