"Emil", Palliative Care Online Virtual Patient Case

Welcome to this Palliative Care virtual patient case. Choose from the different options to navigate through an approximate 3 to 4 month timeline where you have continuity and followup with your patient. There are different routes to get to the one endpoint of the case and some routes are more linear than others. You will encounter different learning points and options to reason through along the way. There are opportunities to go back to different points in the case for your review.  You will find helpful links by clicking on the "Infobuttons" () and references highlighted throughout different points of the case.

This case takes about 20 to 30 minutes to go through comprehensively. Try the case more than once to see where the different routes take you.

For more information about this case or how to use cases generally, click on "About this case" near the bottom of the page.

Emil is a 72 year old patient in your preceptor's practice with an 8 month history of non-small cell lung cancer. His cancer was deemed to be non-curative despite chemotherapy and radiation treatments that finished about six months ago. Your preceptor tells you that Emil is aware of his terminal diagnosis but does not choose to dwell on it. Your preceptor does not feel that there is any denial of his health situation. 

Fortunately, he has enjoyed a good quality of life thus far despite his limited prognosis. Your preceptor tells you that she has been seeing Emil about once a month to make sure that his symptoms are still manageable. Your preceptor warns you that Emil is a pretty stoic guy who doesn't complain much so you may have to work at getting information from him in order to ensure that he's coping adequately.

When you go into the room, Emil says, "My back seems to be hurting a lot in the past 2 weeks."