Grant Smith, MD

Dr. Grant Smith posted a video regarding his view of palliative care and his ideas about how much palliative docs want to improve the lives of patients with serious illenss, not just people who are approaching the end of their lives. When I spoke with him about my circumstance, which is a diagnosis of a potentially lethal illness including significant impairmant of ability to have a satisfactory life from secondaries of treatment as well as the illness Grant Smith showed no sign of intention to follow thru or understanding of how he could. Zero. When physicians are trained they are taught to interview a patient to determine the persons experince in the context of the testing, treatments he she has had and what the overall picture says about the quality of life of the person and what could be done to enhance life. Dr. Smith did not inquire about my experience at all. He made no attempt to acquire knowledge from me about my illness and how it is imparing my life. I am aware… from direct experince of a well tested medication that literlly makes life worth living by correcting the miserable secondary effects of my illness, the treatment I recieved and drugs I was given as treatment. It is routinely given to childern. He was unwilling to prescribe that medication, he seemed unawar of it, and he also recommended I stop taking it. He actually recommended I stop taking a medication that is necessisary to live a satisfactory life at this point. It is a proven and accepted treatment for people in my situation. You will find varying reports, it is clearly excellent for me. From Grant Smith I got the impression of a youngster who had discovered the word no and liked using it. He is young, his agenda does not appear to be the well being of patients but something pertaining to himself. Large institutions keep physicians in a very small box in many regards. I’m 72, I’ve been around senior rock solid physicians since day1 , my father was a beloved pediatrician and public health officer and founded a large medical clinic that is still strong today 65 years later. so I was around his associates from an early age. I’ve seen a lot and some appalling things at Stanford Medicine. One close friend was at the heart of Stanford mediine for over 30 years. At one time she said to me with a wistful emotional tone, “.. the good doctors are leaving Stanford.” After what I witnessed that is not hard to understand.