Dealing with serious disease and end-of-life care is oftentimes the ‘elephant in the room’ for patients and their families. Dr. Steve Pantilat who directs the Palliative Care Program at the University of California, San Francisco, says in many cases, once the topic is broached, the floodgates open.

"You often see this with patients and families. That finally having this conversation is a relief. The patient knows that they’re sick. I mean, they get it. We all hope that somehow these treatments are going to make our serious illness go away and they do, often for a long time, but we haven’t changed the fact that we’re all going to die one day and that is also a part of life. And in palliative care, we recognize that – our goal is to help you live as long, as well as possible, for as long as possible, but we don’t ignore the fact that people will make different decisions if they understand really what the future holds and that they can make choices about how they want that to be."