AFAR MSTAR - the end is near

I (probably) have my presentation mostly done. I'm going to start practicing it either tomorrow evening or Wednesday. It's not exactly the worst presentation in the world; I basically have to talk in an organized fashion for ten minutes, and then allow five minutes for questions from the peanut gallery. I have a few good case studies that I can share, as well as a framework for end of life communication that I can present.

The other slightly more stressful aspect of this is that I'm attempting to write a review of the literature that is appropriate for publishing. The problem that I'm running into isn't the literature search; if there's an article out there about family meetings in the ICU or in end-of-life care or in pediatric palliative care or in palliative care or whatever, I've read it (that is if it was written after about 1990). I've even been fairly successful in keeping track of my search criteria, search terms, and how I culled down the articles. I'm at this point now where I have my big stack of paper print outs and I don't know what to write about. I think I actually have enough for two reviews, one which would present the current view points and frameworks for family meetings in end of life care and one that would deals with prognostication in family meetings. A lot of the articles could even be used to make a third review about family satisfaction with end of life care and family meetings. I just don't know how to write this. They haven't taught us this in our didactic sessions because most people are doing more data analysis stuff. Basically, my thoughts are scattered.

Computers, not casinos. I like it.