Medical-Legal Advocacy and the Palliative Care Team

At the Seventh Annual Medical-Legal Partnership Summit, April Risk and Amie Peele Carter will serve on a panel discussing the uses and benefits of palliative care teams. Risk and Carter and the other panelists will describe how palliative care consultation teams are partnering with legal advocates to identify and address complex problems for patients with exigent needs.

Unresolved financial or legal-social issues can intensify suffering for patients with advanced illnesses. Such patients require rapid, multi-dimensional intervention to help them cope with medical and legal-social problems. Through medical-legal partnerships (MLPs), clinicians can identify and address patients' sources of anxiety, including legacy planning, guardianships/planning for minor children, future planning documents, access to care and shoring up resources.