Palliative Care in Liver Disease: A Podcast with Kirsten Engel, Sarah Gillespie-Heyman, Brittany Waterman, & Amy Johnson
episode
GeriPal - A Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine Podcast
51 min
3 speakers
5 chapters
transcribed 9 hours ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is LiverPal and why did the hosts create a liver‑focused palliative care episode?
This episode of the Jerry Pal podcast is CME eligible.
To claim credit, please go to the CME tab on jerrypal.org.
Welcome to the Jerry Pal podcast. This is Eric Widera. This is
Alex
Smith. And Alex, who do we have with us today?
We have a full house today, Eric. We have Kirsten Engel, who is an emergency medicine and palliative care doc at MGH. Kirsten, welcome to the Jerry Pal podcast.
Thank you so much. I'm thrilled to be here.
And we have Sarah Gillespie-Hayman, who is a palliative care APRN at the West Haven VA in Connecticut. Sarah, welcome to the Jerry Powell podcast.
Thank you.
And we have Brittany Waterman, who's a palliative care doc at The Ohio State University. Brittany, welcome to the Jerry Powell podcast.
Thank you. Pleasure to be here.
And we have Amy Johnson, who's a palliative care doc at Indiana University. Welcome to Jerry Powell.
Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.
So we just had a podcast not too long ago on kidney pal, kidney pal, renal pal.
I don't remember what we called it. Something
like that. I think it was kidney pal.
Kidney
pal. Now we're doing liver pal.
Liver pal.
Hepatopal. Pally liver. So we're going to be talking about liver disease and palliative care. But before we jump into this topic, we always ask for a song request. Who has a song request for Alex? Is it Sarah?
It is Sarah.
Sarah, what's the song?
It is Save Me by Jelly Roll.
Save Me by Jelly Roll. Why Save Me by Jelly Roll?
Well, if you listen to some of the lyrics and know Jelly Roll's story, he had a lot of addiction issues and specifically alcoholic as well. And he actually was able to get through that with a lot of help from different people. And so I thought it was appropriate. We're talking about liver. We're talking about change. And I just thought it was a really special song.
Yeah, great choice. I had a lot of fun with this. Here's a bit of it.
Somebody save me, me from myself I've spent so long living in hell They say my lifestyle is bad for my health It seems to him All of this drinking and smoking is hopeless But feels like it's all that I need Something inside of me's broken I hold on to anything that sets me free I'm a lost cause Baby, don't waste your time on me i'm so damaged beyond repair life has shattered my hopes and my dreams baby don't waste your time on
me
Very nice,
Alex. The song's too fun. I couldn't resist doing the longer version.
I always tell Alex, keep the first one short. We will do more of that song near the end. I
couldn't
stop it. Okay, let's jump into the topic. Liverpal. Liverpal? Liverpal, is that what we're calling it? Yeah, Liverpal. I'm going to start off with Kirsten. Why did you get interested in Liverpal? Emergency medicine, right? Yes. Palliative care. What's the connection and why?
So in emergency medicine, obviously we are interacting and caring for these both exciting and interesting, but also very complex and humbling patients to care for in the ED setting. And that piqued my interest, but really the opportunity that led to it all was coming to MGH and meeting Nneka Youfre, where I had the opportunity to join. the LiverPal group there, and that has been an incredible opportunity.
Is that an actual service,
LiverPal? So it's actually not a service. We're actually at this point really a study. So we're a study group.
Okay. And what are you studying in particular?
So we did a pilot study of nine patients, and now we're in the process of doing an RCT of 200.
RCT of palliative care in liver disease? Exactly.
Okay.
Oh, wow. When do we expect the results of that study to come out? When
do we have you back on the
podcast?
Two and a half years. We're about six months in.
We're going to put that down. I just would love to hear each of the other of our guests. Sarah, from your perspective, how did you get interested in liver pal and what are you doing?
So here at the VA, we're actually pretty lucky or I'm lucky. I work with two amazing hepatologists who actually reached out to me about seven years ago and said, you know, we need help with our liver patients when they are in a state of decline and when they really need extra support.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is LiverPal and why did the hosts create a liver‑focused palliative care episode?
0:00–17:05
2
How did Kirsten Engel become interested in liver palliative care and what is the current LiverPal study design?
17:05–23:06
3
What is Sarah Gillespie‑Heyman’s embedded VA model for decompensated cirrhosis patients?
23:06–35:39
4
How does Brittany Waterman integrate palliative care with hepatology at Ohio State?
35:39–41:53
5
How does Amy Johnson’s liver‑embedded clinic manage transplant‑eligible and non‑eligible patients?
41:53–51:23
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from GeriPal - A Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine Podcast
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