Making Rheum for Palliative Care in Rheumatology: Perspectives of Rheumatology and Palliative Care Clinicians

Poster presenter: Shannon Herndon, MD, Rheumatology Fellow, Duke University School of Medicine 

Poster title: Making Rheum for Palliative Care in Rheumatology: Perspectives of Rheumatology and Palliative Care Clinicians

Poster session A: Saturday, Nov. 16

What is your poster about?
“My poster is about rheumatologists’ and palliative care clinicians’ perspectives on the role of palliative care in rheumatology. We surveyed clinicians across the country and learned that rheumatologists feel more patients would benefit from palliative care, though they rarely refer to palliative care and often do not feel comfortable providing primary palliative care themselves. Palliative care clinicians feel they would be helpful caring for these patients, but limited rheumatology knowledge is a barrier to care. These results shed light on what key clinicians think about palliative care in rheumatology; they highlight the need for further education, investigation, and collaboration between rheumatology and palliative care to better serve people with advanced rheumatic disease.”

Why did you decide to investigate this topic?
“As an internal medicine resident in the medical intensive care unit (MICU), I cared for a very ill young woman with advanced systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and no prior advance care planning. I communicated closely with her family to better understand what they felt the patient’s goals of care and medical wishes would be. It was a challenging case and one that I have carried with me since. This case highlighted for me the challenges in navigating high symptom burden and goals of care in patients with advanced rheumatic disease, particularly in younger patients. Since then, I have embarked on a journey to learn how we, as rheumatologists and a medical community, can better provide timely communication and goal-concordant care for people with advanced rheumatic disease.”  

What are you working on next related to this research?
“I am conducting patient surveys to better understand the rheumatology patient perspective toward palliative care, particularly those with diseases such as SLE and systemic sclerosis, which can present with high symptom burden and multi-organ complications and carry a worse prognosis.”

What excites you most about your work?
“While our rheumatic disease therapies have significantly advanced patient outcomes, patients continue to suffer from a high symptom burden and uncertain disease course, at times with early mortality. I think there is a real opportunity to intervene and improve patients’ quality of life by focusing on symptom burden and goals of care, and it is super exciting to be part of this change in the way we care for our patients.”

What are you most looking forward to at ACR Convergence 2024 in Washington, D.C.?
“This will be my first time attending ACR Convergence as a rheumatology fellow. I am excited to connect with other fellows from across the country and to learn so many new things about rheumatology.”