A team of physicians at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and University of California, San Francisco recommends more effective use of interpreters, greater awareness of potential areas of mistrust and misunderstanding, better communication with families, and better knowledge of cultural differences in general when planning end-of-life and palliative care for Latino patients in the United States.
The recommendations, which are based on a case study and an extensive literature review, appear in a paper in the March 11, 2009 issue of the “Journal of American Medical Association.” The paper is part of an ongoing series called “Perspectives on Care at the Close of Life.”
“Latinos make up 15 percent of the U.S. population, and are projected to be at 30 percent by 2050,” notes lead author Alexander Smith, MD, MS, MPH, a staff physician at SFVAMC and an assistant professor of medicine at UCSF. “Unfortunately, however, most studies on palliative and end-of-life care have not included discussions of cultural differences between Latino and white patients and families. As a result, we don’t know very much about preferences, attitudes, and behaviors among Latino patients regarding end-of-life care.” READ FULL STORY
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