Breathing Easy: A Practical Approach to Palliative Extubations in the Emergency Department

Tuesday, April 14, 2026

5:10 PM - 5:30 PM PT

Location: Cascade Ballroom I - 2nd Floor

CE: 0.25 CME Credit

Speaker(s)

Sean P. Geary, MD (he/him/his)

Residency Director, Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and Surgical Critical Care
Albany Medical Center
Albany, New York

Disclosure(s): No financial relationships to disclose

Co-Speaker(s)

Ashley McLenithan, DO (she/her/hers)

Hospice and Palliative Care Fellow
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
Oakmont, Pennsylvania

Disclosure(s): No financial relationships to disclose

Disclosure(s):

Sean P. Geary, MD: No financial relationships to disclose

Ashley McLenithan, DO: No financial relationships to disclose

Imagine this: You’ve just resuscitated, tubed, and lined a 65-year-old woman found unresponsive in her home. A CT confirms a large hemorrhagic stroke, and you pause—knowing the likely clinical course to follow. Her family arrives, sharing stories of her fierce independence and her “great health” prior to this event, mumblings of “she would never want to live like this” stir around the room. Now what?

When invasive ventilation does not align with your patient’s values, how do we guide the next steps with clarity, compassion, and control of the situation? This engaging session will equip you with practical tools for having clear and compassionate conversations with families, explore when and how to consider palliative extubations in the emergency department, and walk through how to create a smooth, comfort-focused medication and care plan.

Learning Objectives:

Explore techniques to have serious illness conversation with family in an ED setting
Develop a medication and operational plan for palliative extubations
Identify conditions and circumstances to consider palliative extubations.