Caring for your dying patients through a computer screen: ‘I wanted to give them a big hug’
Palliative care physician Dr Michael Franco says a reassuring hand on the shoulder makes a difference, but so does technology.
“People were almost grieving for their lost ability to see patients and families in person.”
Throughout 2019, Victorian medical oncologist and palliative care physician Dr Michael Franco would drive from Monash Medical Centre to Dandenong Hospital to meet with his colleagues and see patients on the wards.
The next year, he was delivering care of the dying via telehealth.
“Palliative care is a specialty that is so used to being hands on with patients and seeing patients in a team as well — as much as, if not more than, most other specialties,” he says.
