During the COVID-19 pandemic, physicians may be deployed to unfamiliar clinical units and may need to have difficult discussions around goals of care that they are not used to having, perhaps even with patients they don’t know. In this podcast, Dr. Yolanda Madarnas, CMPA Physician Advisor, and Dr. Steven Bellemare, CMPA Director of Practice Improvement, discuss the CMPA’s experience with cases involving end of life care.

Listen to them discuss key messages that may help you effectively support patients and families who need to make plan of care choices as a result of a COVID-19-related critical illness.

Physicians routinely face challenging situations and difficult decisions. This can be morally distressing, especially during times of crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. In this podcast, Dr. Yolanda Madarnas, CMPA Physician Advisor, and Dr. Steven Bellemare, CMPA Director of Practice Improvement, are joined by Dr. Caroline Gérin-Lajoie, psychiatrist at The Ottawa Hospital, and Executive Vice-President of Physician Health and Wellness at the Canadian Medical Association.

Listen to them discuss why it is important to recognize and manage moral distress and explore various coping strategies that physicians can adopt to stay well.

A public health emergency may force a shift away from the usual patient-first ethics, to a public-first approach. This episode covers the concept of reasonable care and the patient’s best interests to help you make sense of the unusual demands the COVID-19 pandemic may place on you.