Press Room: Press Releases

Society of Critical Care Medicine to Host New Conference on End-of-Life Care
Lessons from the Terry Schiavo Case to be Discussed

(DES PLAINES, Ill., Dec. 14, 2005) – World-renowned thought-leaders in end-of-life care will convene during the Society of Critical Care Medicine’s (SCCM) new conference Improving the Quality of End-of-Life Care in the ICU: Interventions that Work in Miami, Fla., February 17–18, 2006.

In the intensive care unit (ICU), critical care professionals are faced with obligations that extend beyond attempts to reverse illness and injury and include a commitment to provide patients and their families with quality end-of-life care. Unfortunately, barriers including inadequate communication, lack of formal training about end-of-life issues, heightened emotions on the part of patients, families and caregivers, and inconsistent understanding of legal and ethical issues often hinder end-of-life care in the ICU. The Society developed the informative conference Improving the Quality of End-of-Life Care in the ICU: Interventions that Work to help all critical care professionals overcome these barriers.

"It is time to move our understanding of the barriers to quality end-of-life care from surveys to actual bedside practice and make our care for those dying in the ICU more humane, compassionate and of the highest quality," said conference co-chair Mitchell M. Levy, MD, FCCM, professor of medicine, director of medical ICU, Brown University School of Medicine, Rhode Island Hospital, Providence, R.I.

Program highlights include new models of ICU care that spearhead change, encourage shared and compassionate decision-making and promote better communication within the ICU team and with patients and families. In addition, the diverse sessions will include topics such as changing clinician behavior, the role of the palliative care and ethics consultant in the ICU and the legal lessons from the case of Terri Schiavo and other recent cases. Esteemed experts in end-of-life care will identify valid and reliable measures directly developed from their groundbreaking research and clinical practice. Additional resources and materials will also be identified to promote awareness and encourage leadership to advance quality end-of-life care in the ICU setting.

"The time has come to focus on identifying interventions that can be used to improve the experiences of patients dying after a stay in the ICU, their families, and the critical care clinicians caring for them," said conference co-chair, J. Randall Curtis, MD, MPH, professor of medicine, University of Washington, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care, Seattle, Wash.

Improving the Quality of End-of-Life Care in the ICU: Interventions that Work will be held at the Hotel InterContinental Miami in Miami, Fla., February 17-18, 2006. Registration is available by calling +1 847 827-6888 or visiting http://www.sccm.org/ecomm/. Funding support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has helped to make this conference possible.

The Society of Critical Care Medicine is the leading professional organization dedicated to ensuring excellence and consistency in the practice of critical care medicine. With more than 13,000 members worldwide, the Society is the only professional organization devoted exclusively to the advancement of multiprofessional intensive care through excellence in patient care, professional education, public education, research and advocacy. Members of the Society include intensivists, critical care nurses, critical care pharmacists, clinical pharmacologists, respiratory care practitioners and other professionals with an interest in critical care, which may include physician assistants, social workers and dieticians.

###