Rob Pardi Responds

My April 6th and April 11th posts focused on a  NYTimes story about Dr. Desiree Pardi, a palliative care physician who refused palliative care when dying.

Today let's look at her husband's view of the article. Robert Pardi's comments were posted on Pallimed to enrich -- or shall I say, to straighten out -- the discussion about his wife's decision. Although he doesn't use the term, he's telling us his wife was a Healthy Survivor. 

"I am Desiree's husband and...I need to convey that the article was very misleading...."

He tells us his wife was passionate about teaching patients the advantages and disadvantages of each option at the end of life, from their choices regarding pain control to their decisions about how to spend remaining time. "She believed in people needing to know the truth and planning accordingly."

Mr. Pardi respected his wife's choices, including her choice of coping mechanism: "...using me as her information buffer (inaccurately referred to as 'denial' by many). We had a medical team and a wonderful oncologist for over 5 years who supported her while using me as that buffer...we agreed to go that route." (my emphasis)

As an advocate for Healthy Survivorship, I applaud her husband and medical team. It must have been difficult to shield her from news and to watch her live with pain. But they understood that only in this way could she continue her work for as long as possible, the work she felt made her life worth living.

Comments

[Diane Meier]

Thank you Wendy, for pointing out, in your typically clear and eloquent fashion, that palliative care is about matching all treatments to PATIENT GOALS. Desiree understood this, practiced it, and received it. She is greatly missed by her friends and colleagues.

[Christian Sinclair, MD, FAAHPM]

Wendy,

Thanks for posting the link from Pallimed. We were very glad to see that Rob responded to our blog post about the article. I was able to speak with him by phone and he was very glad to see that many bloggers 'got it' and could help spread his message about what mattered to Desiree.

(BTW I found your blog post via @DianeEMeier on Twitter)