The Language of Serious Illness: A Podcast with Sunita Puri, Bob Arnold, and Jacqueline Kruser
episode
GeriPal - A Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine Podcast
46 min
4 speakers
8 chapters
transcribed 8 hours ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the overall focus of this episode on serious‑illness communication?
Welcome to the Jerry Pell Podcast. This is Eric Widera.
This is Alex Smith.
And Alex, who do we have with us today?
We are delighted to welcome Jackie Kruiser, who's a pulmonary critical care doctor and health services researcher at the University of Wisconsin. Is that part of the name? Thank
you
so much.
Welcome to the Jerry
Pell Podcast.
Thank you.
And we're delighted to welcome back Bob Arnold, who is a palliative care doctor, Vital Talk co-founder. He's at the University of Pittsburgh. Bob, welcome back to Jerry Pal.
Great to be here.
Bob's a little low energy today, I could tell.
It's your shirt, the fish. You have
to be calm in reaction to my loud aloha shirt. And Sunita Puri, who is an author and palliative care fellowship director at the University of Massachusetts Chan School of Medicine. Welcome back to Jerry Powell, Sunita.
Thanks so much for having me. It's great to be with you both.
So this is a second of three podcasts on communication. The first one we published last week on miscommunication. This one's going to be on the language of life-sustaining treatment. And then next week, we will be talking about surgical communication around similar topics. So before we get into that, we always start off with song requests. Sunita, I think you got a song request for Alex.
Yes. So I requested Alex to play Meet Me in the Woods by Lord Huron. Because to me, when I think about what it's like for people to go through a serious illness or what it's like for us as providers to guide people through a serious illness, it's often like being... in the woods where we have to ask people to meet us where we are sometimes filled with uncertainty and they are filled with uncertainty and the path ahead is too but somehow i think no matter what the outcome we always find a way through the dark
now i got a really important question for you this was not your first song request
was it no it was not
I love, by the way, wonderful reason why you chose that song. So I'm super excited to hear it. But what was the original song request?
I believe my request was California Love, which has nothing to do with the topic of this podcast. But it selfishly is something that I thought would be fun to open this
podcast. And maybe next time we'll do that. But learning Tupac on guitar and then all those lyrics, it's a lot. But we're recording three podcasts this week. But next time, maybe we'll try. Maybe. No
problem. Honestly, I'd be happy to provide the vocals. I'm very well versed.
Great. All right, here's a little
bit. I took a little journey to the unknown. I come back changed, I can feel it in my bones. I felt the forces that our eyes can't see. Now the darkness got a hold on me. Now the darkness got a hold on me. I have seen what the darkness does. Say goodbye to who I was. I ain't never been away so long. Don't look back, then days are gone. Follow me into the endless night. I can bring your fears to light. Show me yours and I'll show you mine.
That was wonderful. Excellent song selection, Sunita. So I'm going to start off with you.
How does Sunita Puri describe the hidden harms of CPR and why should it be treated like any other procedure?
It's a double questions now. You recently published an article in The New Yorker titled, oh, I can't even read my own. What was the title again?
I can't read my own
handwriting today.
Happens to me all the time. Hidden harms
of CPR.
There we go. Yes.
You've done a lot. You're a prolific author. You've written in a lot of places, including your own books. What prompted you to write this piece in The New Yorker?
So I think as I wrote about in the piece, I've always felt like when I look back on my training, and this is not, by the way, I just wanna be clear, Eric and Alex trained me very well. This was before my rotation with Eric and Alex, but I felt like I just didn't have a good way of helping people think about serious decisions when it came to what was most important for them, but also what we would recommend. I felt like I was always told to present people with a buffet of options and really without guidance, ask them to choose, which is it would always make me feel sick to my stomach. And I described a code that I led as a senior resident.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the overall focus of this episode on serious‑illness communication?
0:00–3:50
2
How does Sunita Puri describe the hidden harms of CPR and why should it be treated like any other procedure?
3:50–11:10
3
What problems do the authors identify with using the word “need” when discussing life‑sustaining treatments?
11:10–16:33
4
How can clinicians create space for deliberation instead of defaulting to “need” statements?
16:33–22:23
5
What ethical principles (autonomy, beneficence, non‑maleficence) shape shared decision‑making for intubation and CPR?
22:23–29:35
6
How do the guests suggest reframing conversations about code status and ICU admission as a time‑limited trial?
29:35–38:00
7
What practical alternatives to “need” language do Jackie Kruiser recommend for clinicians?
38:00–42:25
8
What are the key take‑aways from the lightning‑round questions and the episode’s closing thoughts?
42:25–46:11
Speakers
4 identifiedMore from GeriPal - A Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine Podcast
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