The most important message that Jeffrey Behrens, M.D., tries to convey to the Palm Beach County community is that hospice is not a “place” but a plan of care that can be brought home to the patient.
“We bring our care to the patient. We dont whisk our patients away for hospice care,” says Behrens, medical director for VITAS Innovative Hospice Care® in Palm Beach County and a geriatric physician. He is also medical director at two nursing homes in Palm Beach County and serves on the board of the Florida Medical Directors Association.
Behrens, who is board certified in hospice and palliative care, started at VITAS in May of 2003. Having practiced geriatrics in Palm Beach County since 1989, his career shift to hospice care was a natural one.
“When I was a geriatric physician, I was referring two to three patients per week to hospice,” he explains. “I didnt want to stop seeing them, however, so I would follow up with them. So I was unofficially practicing hospice care for years.”
When VITAS approached Behrens about joining its team, he liked the companys philosophy of taking its care to its patients not the other way around.
“Studies have shown that people prefer to be in their own homes at the end of life,” says Behrens. “They like to have their loved ones with them, to have the dog and cat sitting on their bed, to have their favorite blanket wrapped around them. Thats what VITAS gives to its patients care and comfort in familiar surroundings.”
Hospice care in the United States, however, is facing a shortage in capable, qualified staff, especially nurses, says Behrens, a volunteer professor of medicine at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. But he sees signs that those challenges are being addressed and not without his help.
As a physician who teaches first-year medical students at Nova Southeastern University College of Osteopathic Medicine, Behrens takes students with him when he visits his home-based hospice patients. This exposes the students both to end-of-life care and house-call medicine. Behrens is also encouraged by the fact that more and more medical schools are adding hospice and palliative care to their curricula as well as adding hospice rotations to their resident programs.
“We so need more emphasis on end-of-life care,” says Behrens. Although most of the medical schools programs are for future doctors, he hopes they will have a downstream effect and generate more interest in hospice and palliative nursing, as well.
