Description:
The Carousel Pediatric Hospice Team is an interdisciplinary team which provides outpatient hospice and home health services for pediatric patients in the Kansas City Metro area. It is a part of Kansas City Hospice. A wide range of diagnoses are present including congenital anomalies with a terminal diagnoses, pediatric cancers, and sequelae from severe life-threatening traumatic injuries. The fellow will work very closely with an interdisciplinary team of social workers, chaplains, music therapists, pharmacists dieticians, child-teen specialists and others.
During the carousel portion of the month, the fellow gains in depth exposure to acute pain and symptom management of the pediatric patient and education and counseling for pediatric patients and families dealing with end of life issues.
The Center for the Comprehensive Care of Children with Chronic Conditions (C6) at KU Medical center works with infants, children and adolescents with chronic and life limiting diagnoses to provide palliative care from the time of diagnosis forward: to cure, to transition to adult care, or to end-of-life care. C6 services focus on the child and family in the community, partnering with school professionals, child care providers, clergy, coaches, peers and others to ensure that the young person is have developmentally appropriate experiences, despite the serious illness.
In addition, the fellow will have opportunity to see patients with the behavioral pediatric specialists at KU Med, who provide expertise in meeting the needs of children who are suffering the serious illness or loss of an adult loved one in the hospital.
During the pediatric rotation, the fellow will attend the Kansas City Hospice & Palliative Care Carousel Pediatric Hospice Team Meeting. Twice a month, the IDT team members will review the care plans and challenges for all patients on the service. Dr. Alan Gamis is the medical director and will work with the fellow to provide input from a medical perspective.
During this rotation and during home visit months the fellow will make supervised home visits with another physician or member of the IDT team. Given the years of cumulative experience with pediatric hospice, the IDT members will be able to teach the fellow about the unique aspects of providing pediatric palliative care. The appropriate contact person is Patty Poore (816) 276- 2705 for arranging home visits with the fellow. On the first day of rotation the fellow should contact Patty to discuss rotation logistics.
While working with the Pediatric Palliative Care team at KU, the fellow will see inpatient Palliative Care consults with Kathy Davis as well as inpatient behavioral peds consults with Martye Barnard or Steve Lassen. Because the volume of the behavioral peds consults are unpredictable, the fellow is asked be available for the full 4 week block of the rotation for this activity. Should the fellow get a call about a behavioral peds consult and not be able to leave what they are doing (out on a peds home visit/unable to get to KU easily) then it is okay- just make every reasonable effort to get the exposure. The fellow will also have opportunity at KU to see Palliative patients in the outpatient setting, in the NICU survivors clinic as well as the Heme/Onc clinics. The fellow will attend the Peds Pall care case conference and will have opportunity for reading on the core Palliative principles in the pediatric population.
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The University of Kansas Medical Center