“Post-Transplantation Palliative Care: Misconceptions and Disincentives”

As organ transplantation has become commonplace, transplant recipients’ expectations have shifted, from management and acceptance, to cure and survival. Yet, transplant recipients continue to have significant healthcare needs, including peri-operative complications, intensive care unit stays, family distress, and burdensome symptoms. Despite the benefits that palliative care services could provide to these patients, Dr. Michael Pottash identifies two major barriers that impede its the routine integration: misconceptions about the goals of palliative care, and the quality care outcome measures that have the unintended consequence of disincentivizing its routine use.