Just in response to your question about multidisciplinary care, I would not focus on terminology too much. There are a lot of multidisciplinary teams, but that doesn't mean that individuals within those teams are working together very well. That's where perhaps, whether you call it interprofessional or interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary, it really doesn't matter.
So it's perhaps a matter of finding ways for those individuals to really communicate well and to collaborate. I think part of the issue is that when there is one physician, for instance, and I go to visit that one physician in her office, she's one person. And that's part of the lack of support for her. I think it becomes difficult when you feel as if you're working in isolation. That's part of why people shut down emotionally from the suffering of their patients.
If you build supports within the teams where people actually work together and don't bear that burden on their own, then you actually start to build systems and structures that people can work with and help them to respond more effectively to the suffering of their patients, and that involves nursing and all the other groups--OT, PD, and all of that stuff.
Just having them isn't really good enough. Having them, and having systems that allow them to work together--that's part of the solution to the problem.