Dr. Clevis Parker joined the nonprofit Hospice of Yuma two months ago. Parker moved to Yuma from Fort Wayne, Indiana, where he was the medical director overseeing hospice and palliative care for multiple hospitals.
KAWC’s Amanda Solliday talked to Dr. Parker about his experiences in hospice care during his 15-year medical career and his goals for the new role in Yuma.
Solliday: What excites you about being the new medical director of Hospice of Yuma?
Parker: I think the biggest thing that’s exciting for me is trying to grow our service, or provide more service to more patients in hospice.
Solliday: How did you first become interested in the field?
Parker: So two things that got me interested – one was personal experience with a loved one who was very ill, had cancer. We didn’t have very many options presented to us. So she ended up getting chemo and dying on chemo. And the other thing that got me interested was seeing my own personal patients struggle and not have options presented to them.
Solliday: What sort of changes have you seen over the past 15 years in hospice and palliative care?
Parker: So hospice and palliative care have grown. I think the awareness of patients and physicians has gotten better, although we still have a lot of work to do.
And they’re different. Hospice is end of life care, specifically, with a terminal diagnosis and a life expectancy of six months or less. And palliative care is care that can be provided in conjunction with your current care. So they’re very different.
Solliday: What are some of the other misconceptions people might have about hospice or palliative care?
Parker: I guess the biggest one for hospice is that we provide a lot of medications and take away medications and just give you morphine and you pass away. But there are studies that would suggest once you’re enrolled in hospice care, you may actually survive longer.
Solliday: How do you reach out to patients who might want or need hospice care but might not know how to receive the services?
Parker: I think one way to do that is by educating the physicians, working a little bit closer with them. So that way they still feel like they can provide excellent care for their patients in conjunction with the hospice care that we could provide.
Another would be providing community outreach programs and education, making sure that patients and their family members understand that hospice is a whole team approach. It’s different from the typical current care that they’re receiving. And we don’t just address their current disease process. We treat them as people and look at them as a total person. So we treat not just the pain and symptoms, we also manage the psychosocial piece of that and the spiritual components.
Solliday: What are some of the changes you’d like to see as far as hospice care or palliative care in the community?
Parker: Work a little bit closer with our referring sources to make sure we are getting referrals early enough for hospice care.
The real benefit from hospice care comes when we’ve established a relationship with the patients and their families to provide the good, balanced care that they need. Not just from a physical, symptomatic standpoint but also from a psychological and spiritual standpoint.
So we need referrals that are going to be earlier in the process than late.
And if you look at some of the national statistics, hospice referrals, especially with cancer patients, are made within the last week or so of life. And that’s not enough time for us to effectively control symptoms or help families prepare for their dying loved one.
Solliday: Do you think some of the problem might be families have a hard time admitting they need end-of-life care?
Parker: Yeah, I think that is a challenge. But I also think that if patients are provided options, and they’re fully informed of what’s happening to their bodies and their disease, then they make better decisions.