H eadlines
Palliative Continued from Page 1
themselves acting as friend,
confidante and family surro-
gate for their patients, cut off
from the people who would
normally fill those roles.

Though those who provide
palliative care always tend to
the emotional and psychosocial
needs of their patients, hospital-
ized patients have come to lean
much more heavily on their
doctors and nurses for those
purposes in the last eight months.

“In normal times, we’re here
to support the patient and the
family. We organize family
meetings where the whole
family can come in, and we can
go over options, and we facili-
tate discussions,” Siegel said.

“And now with COVID, in
the isolation, it feels like we’re
providing much more hands-
on, bedside care for the patient,
because we’re their only link to
the outside often.”
Distinct from hospice care,
palliative care is intended to
optimize the quality of life for
those living with life-threatening
illnesses. Beyond providing the
medical care needed to ensure
such a thing, palliative care
teams coordinate with a patient’s
other doctors, and provide
emotional support to patients
14 NOVEMBER 12, 2020
and their families. Those
teams frequently include social
workers, therapists, chaplains
and nutritionists, and that care
can be provided to patients at
home or at the hospital.

For Larry Kramer, 79, of
Center City, being a patient
of Siegel’s this past fall meant
more than COVID-specific
treatment. It meant having an
advocate, Kramer said, an asset
that he tried to provide himself
back in his days as a physician.

It meant that he had someone
to call his wife and daughter to
provide updates on his condi-
tion, and it also meant a steady
stream of Twizzlers and Swedish
Fish whenever Siegel came to
check on him. In low moments,
individually wrapped candies
can add up to more than the
sum of their parts.

“She was almost like clergy, a
nurse, a social worker,” Kramer
said. “And I was happy that she
came and saw me.”
Palliative care doctors,
Siegel said, are “trained experts
in communication,” which
has been a boon to their work
during the pandemic. Providing
emotional support and acting
as a go-between for patients and
their families comes naturally.

Eric Goodlev, a palliative
care physician at Einstein
Medical Center Montgomery,
Greg Garber is the director of patient support services
at Jefferson Health.
Courtesy of Jefferson Health
Dr. Mari Siegel said that her work as a palliative care
doctor gives her access to holy space.

 Courtesy of Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University
In normal times, we’re here to support the patient and the family.

We organize family meetings where the whole family can come in, and
we can go over options, and we facilitate discussions.”
DR. MARI SIEGEL
was drawn to the field in
part because of the work of
his wife, Lauren Goodlev, the
cantor at Beth David Reform
Congregation. Inspired by the
meaning and sense of purpose
that she drew from her work,
Goodlev decided to switch
from life as an academic hospi-
talist to his current profession.

Now, it’s the work to which
he feels called. A mentor of his
has described palliative care as
“medical care as a ministry.”
Though Goodlev doesn’t quite
sign on to that description, he
feels strongly that the work he
does is an expression of his
own Judaism. In the past eight
months, his patients have come
to depend on his humanity as
much as they have his skill.

At Jefferson Health, Greg
Garber, director of patient
support services, and Brooke
Worster, medical director
for supportive medicine and
cancer survivorship, are
JEWISH EXPONENT
adjusting to discussing life
and death matters with their
patients’ family members over
the phone, right as they’re
trying to help their patients
adjust to it, too.

They’re also trying to
make sure that inequalities in
the distribution of palliative
care aren’t exacerbated even
further — not every patient
or their family has access to
the technology needed for
virtual care, for example.

Worster hopes that this period
has underlined the necessity
of palliative care for hospitals
across the country.

“This is a needed resource,
and we need to look at the ways
in which we can financially
make it either reimbursable or
sustainable for all patients to
have access to it,” Worster said.

The changes are not so
drastic for everyone in pallia-
tive care.

At Children’s Hospital of
Pennsylvania, Dr. Miriam
Stewart works with the
pediatric advanced care team,
providing palliative care to
children. For one thing, the
incidence of COVID cases
among her patient population
is much lower.

But Stewart and her team
have needed to get creative
when it comes to meeting
parents, as they are not able
to come into the hospital as
often as they were prior to
the pandemic. Like everyone,
they’ve come to embrace and
rely upon telehealth in ways
they never foresaw.

“They’re able to remain in the
comfort of their home, and we’re
actually able to see them in their
homes in the setting where they
live, which in many cases really
helped us take even better care
of them,” Stewart said. l
jbernstein@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM