The Long View

So much for Sarah Palin’s fictive “death panels” (though I would like to convene one in order to put her out of our misery).

As reported by the Associated Press, a study funded by the National Cancer Institute and published in the respected Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), in which 322 terminally ill patients in rural New Hampshire (a historically Republican state) and Vermont (a historically Democratic state) who received end-of-life counseling, resulted in:

• Improved outcomes on a quality of life scale
• Improved outcomes on a mood scale
• Longer life

Patients had the option of speaking with a nurse over the phone or attending 90-minute “group appointments” with a physician and nurse.