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PALLIATIVE CARE
ADAM CARDINA, MD,
has worked
in Thompson Hospital’s Emergency
Department since 2012. After taking
a sabbatical to
pursue a palliative
care fellowship at
the University of
Rochester Medical
Center, he now
spends three days
of his work week
providing pallia-
tive care alongside
Cheryl Williams,
MD, who joined Thompson’s medical
staff in 2014.
“She’s an incredibly compassionate,
capable and caring doctor who is an ex-
cellent role model, for sure,” Dr. Cardina
says of Dr. Williams.
They offer both inpatient and outpa-
tient consults to help give patients with
cancer and other conditions—including
congestive heart failure, chronic kidney
disease, lung disease and Parkinson’s
disease—relief from symptoms and stress.
Dr. Cardina says he is grateful for the
opportunity to now practice palliative
medicine, as well as emergency medicine.
“Both are important,” he says, “and I
think one enhances the other.”
In fact, it was in the ED that he first
became interested in palliative care, see-
ing patients whose visits were related to
the progression of chronic illnesses and
wanting to address these bigger issues.
“I felt like there was more I could
offer,” he says, “and the context of an
ED visit didn’t allow for it, so I had to
change roles.”
MORE COMPREHENSIVE CARE
According to Dr. Williams, consults and
follow-up visits increased an average of
20 to 25 percent during the program’s
first year at Thompson.
understand their illness and to be able to
choose a treatment plan that best suits
their needs,” he says.
Dr. Baum also notes that in the ED,
Dr. Cardina can “bring his knowledge of
palliative care principles to the front lines
of medical care, where patients and their
families can begin to determine their
care options.”
Adam
Cardina, MD
Emergencymedicine physicianhelps
enhancepalliative care
Now, she and Dr. Cardina are working
on seeing even more patients. Their plan
is to expand outpatient consults as well
as inpatient consults, seeing patients
before hospital admissions and working
with physicians from other disciplines
on campus—such as oncology and pain
management—to address symptom
needs and care goals.
“My vision is to try to develop a mini-
palliative care division within Thompson
that allows us to provide more compre-
hensive care, creating a web of people
and keeping patients here who would
have—in the past—required transport
to Rochester,” he says.
Senior Vice President of Medical Ser-
vices David Baum, MD, says Dr. Cardina’s
presence at Thompson further strength-
ens the existing program.
“An important goal of palliative
care medicine is to have our patients
DID YOU KNOW?
Palliative care is different from
hospice care. Hospice is for
people who are facing the end
of life. Hospice patients always
receive palliative care to help
make their final months more
comfortable. But palliative
care is also for people who are
trying to cure, slow or manage
their disease.
From left: Cheryl Williams, MD, shown on one of Thompson Hospital’s medical/surgical
floors with Rachel Wise of Case Management/Social Work, is now joined by Adam
Cardina, MD, in offering palliative care consults.
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