Dr. Jessica Zitter, MD, MPH, is committed to changing the current paradigm of end-of-life medical decision-making. In today’s medical culture, the dying are often put on what she calls the “End-of-Life Conveyor Belt.” They are intubated, catheterized, and die attached to machines, frequently without even knowing they are dying.
In her work, Zitter builds bridges between patients and the healthcare team, striving to offer care aligned with each patient’s values and preferences. She has come to see that patients empowered with knowledge can die well, even beautifully.
Dr. Zitter practices the unusual combination of Critical and Palliative Care medicine at Highland Hospital, a public hospital in Oakland, Calif. She attended Stanford University and Case Western Reserve University Medical School and earned her masters in Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley. Her medical training includes an Internal Medicine residency at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and a fellowship in Pulmonary/Critical Care at the University of California, San Francisco. She is also co-founder of Vital Decisions, a telephone-based counseling service for patients with life-limiting illness.
Dr. Zitter is the author of Extreme Measures – Finding a Better Path to the End of Life, due to publish this month. She is a regular contributor to The New York Timesand her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Huffington Post, Pacific Standard,JAMA, andThe Journal of the American Medical Association. She is featured in the short documentary Extremis, which won top honors at the Tribeca and San Francisco International Film Festivals now streaming on Netflix.
She lives in Oakland with her husband, three children, and two dogs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJiY8duVgz0
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.