Top Ten Challenges for the Medical Oncology and Palliative Care Physicians Caring for Terminal Patients in Saudi Arabia

Family meetings provide an opportunity to enhance the quality of care provided to palliative care patients and their family careers [1]. It has been considered the cornerstone in the palliative care settings of our Institute. As per our policy, it is mandatory to conduct a comprehensive multidisciplinary family meeting which includes the patient's main Caregiver (assigned by the patient), Primary Treating Physician (MRP), Social Worker (the one who carries the responsibility of arranging the setting and makes sure of the presence of the right persons), the Palliative Care Nurse Coordinator, and the Palliative Care Physician (Assistant Consultant , Fellow or Consultant) in order to accept any cancer patient under palliative care. The rationale of such a meeting is to explain the goals of care, plan of management and code status (DNR). While family meetings are promoted as a common and valuable tool within the context of specialist palliative care there is limited evidence related to how they should be conducted and indeed whether they are valuable, most evidence being extrapolated from other settings [1]. Furthermore, the agreement and signature of the assigned family member on a special meeting form which includes all the discussed points are essential requirements before accepting the transfer of care. Similar questions, with nearly the same answers, were being repeated in most of the meetings. After collecting some data from both Medical Oncology and Palliative Care physicians, we managed to choose the 10 most common questions raised in the 100 family meetings held during the last 3 months of 2017 (from October to December 2017).