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https://healthcarestrategica.com

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In this memoir, A Death Lived, Dr Martha Calihan shares the story of her husband's final illness and death to address some of the big questions about end-of-life care and the dying process. 

Her unique perspective as both a wife and a physician allow her to explore these issues on a personal and professional level while also weaving in some of the mystical aspects of dying that she witnessed. 

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Over the years, Brad has seen thousands of difficult symptom management cases while assisting patients and their families in the middle of the night. The most challenging cases were when the patient could not swallow medication and end-of-life symptoms were spiraling out of control.

One night, Brad had a patient who was experiencing severe terminal agitation. The patient was suffering; he was shouting, he was climbing out of bed, and he was clearly very frightened. Brad got orders to administer a sedative that would help calm the patient. Since the patient was unable to swallow, the prescribed route of administration was per rectum. He administered the sedative in tablet form rectally as prescribed, and waited “that difficult wait” for the patient to calm while giving the patient’s son emotional support. An hour later, the patient was worse. The desire of both the patient and his family were that he be able to die peacefully and at home. Brad called the doctor again for a repeated dose of sedative. While preparing to administer the second dose, he realized that the previous dose was still undissolved in the patient’s rectum.

Brad was left with a dilemma that is well-known by every experienced hospice nurse: how to help a patient who is experiencing severe symptoms and unable to swallow reach a state of comfort within the home setting.

Motivated to reduce the severe agitation and suffering of his dying patient, Brad found a way to give the medication as a suspension that would absorb quickly in the patient’s dry rectum. He crushed the tablet, added water, and administered the medication suspension into the rectum with a urinary catheter. The patient calmed down quickly and was sound asleep within thirty minutes. The patient’s son was deeply grateful for an easy solution that controlled his father’s symptoms with minimal subsequent discomfort or disruption. The patient died peacefully at home a few days later.

Given the successful outcome of this case, Brad decided to create an optimized device to facilitate this intervention. He subsequently co-founded Hospi with the goal of making a commercial device available that could provide comfort and relief for patients and their loved ones on a much larger scale than would be possible as a lone practitioner.

Hospi developed the Macy Catheter to improve the patient and caregiver experience with serious or terminal illness. The Macy Catheter is designed to maintain patient comfort and dignity while leveraging the speed and established benefits of rectal administration. The Macy Catheter is of particular relevance during end of life, as it can help patients remain comfortable in their home. It can also reduce the need for more costly and complex administration routes like intravenous delivery, which is seldom used in the hospice setting. The patented device has received 510(k) clearance from the U.S. FDA.

To learn more about Hospi Corporation, click here.

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Dr. Kerr is the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Medical Officer of Hospice & Palliative Care Buffalo, a valued member of our Coalition and parent organization of Hospice Buffalo. Dr. Kerr wrote Death Is But a Dream, an examination of ELEs, based on his experience with hospice patients and their families in Buffalo, NY.

“Surviving Death” is a six-part series that explores the end of life through personal stories and research on near-death experiences. The fifth episode documents Dr. Kerr’s conversations with hospice patients of all ages who report seeing and interacting with deceased loved ones. These experiences can offer comfort for people as they near the end of life and, in turn, for their caregivers and loved ones.

“We’ve done studies of hundreds of bereaved people and it’s very clear that what is good for the patient is good for the loved ones, and it absolutely soothes them in grief,” Dr. Kerr explains during an interview for the series.

“Surviving Death” is now available to stream on Netflix here. For more information on Hospice & Palliative Care Buffalo, click here. You can also learn more about the work of Dr. Kerr and his fellow researchers by clicking here.

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http://www.justcallbill.net

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Jennifer O’Brien helps people talk about caregiving and end of life. She encourages compassionate, real conversation through her book, The Hospice Doctor’s Widow: A Journal, where she shares her story of caregiving through collages and writings. 

After years of caring for people with serious illness as a physician, Jennifer’s husband, Bob Lehmberg, was diagnosed with a stage IV, metastatic cancer. But caregiving for the man who had made a 40-year career of caregiving as a physician was not easy. When Jennifer’s husband was diagnosed and later after he died, she turned to what had brought her comfort for years—art journaling. She documented and depicted the raw, honest, beautiful and exhausting reality of caregiving through collage, tableaus, notes and observations. She included much of the wisdom and perspective she learned from her husband in his years as a physician. 

When the book was just a stack of pages, she took it to a friend who had just been diagnosed with a rare, advanced bladder cancer. After reading the book and knowing his own prognosis, he said, “You need to give this to my wife. She needs to understand what is ahead and feel supported as my caregiver.” After seeing how much that stack of pages helped them in his final months, Jennifer knew that what she had created might help others.

Having been a practice management consultant and educator to physicians for 30+ years, an executive administrator for two large medical practices, in administration at three major academic medical centers, the wife and now widow of a physician, Jennifer has a unique and thorough understanding of healthcare. Still, with all of this experience, caregiving for her dying husband was both the greatest honor and challenge of her life. 

Now Jennifer works to help caregivers feel supported while caring for others and taking care of themselves.

https://www.hospicedrswidow.com/about

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His responsibilities include handling over 80 publishers of Dr. Ross’ work, public relations, copyright & trademark issues, website maintainance, developing foreign Kübler-Ross chapters, developing strategic partnerships, as well as preserving her archives. While growing up, he traveled with her extensively while on her numerous foreign trips witnessing her lectures and workshops. Ken has lectured on his mother’s legacy for hospices and various conferences in South America, Asia, and Europe. There are several film projects that Ken is currently a consultant on including a major motion picture, a television series and various documentaries, both foreign and domestic.

See Ken Ross on on YouTube.com

A professional photographer by trade, he has photographed 101 countries.

http://archive.azcentral.com/news/articles/2008/06/19/20080619sr-kenross0621-ON.html

www.kenrossphotography.com

Author, Real Taste of Life: A Journal by Ken Ross and Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, 2002

Tea with Elisabeth by: Ken Ross, Fern Stewart Welch, and Rose Winters, 2009

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Grief Coach combines Emma's passion for mobile technology and engagement, with her deep commitment to giving people the confidence and tools they need to support each other through grief. She knows that, while nothing makes grief go away, supporting someone through loss is powerful and transformative for the supporter, and alters the trajectory for the grieving person too.

https://grief.coach

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No one knows better how to embrace life’s challenges than Rachel herself. Overcoming her own adversity of being widowed at 31 years old with a 2-year-old daughter, she “wows” audiences with her down-to-earth, current and relevant presentations – helping attendees to reach their potential by embracing and learning from all of life’s complexities. Having worked in management for Fortune 100 companies, she is fully aware of the see-saw created when personal and professional challenges collide.

Rachel has been speaking passionately to national audiences of all sizes for 20 years, addressing all aspects of change, growth, and acceptance that comes with embracing life’s challenges – those expected and unexpected. Through her books, Living with Loss, One Day at a Time and Grief in the Workplace, Rachel offers a wealth of knowledge, inspiration and practical advice for those who have lost a loved one or are supporting someone who has lost a loved one. 

​

On October 1, 2019, Rachel released her third book, Finding Peace, One Piece at a Time. This book provides encouragement and tools for those seeking to down-size, right-size or sort through a loved one’s possessions. Whether they are in physical or electronic form, those possessions tell the story of the person’s life. Rachel’s book shares practical ways to thin, repurpose, and redistribute these possessions so they continue to share the story with future generations. 

Rachel is available for speaking appearances, educational programs, interviews and community outreach. 

https://www.rachelkodanaz.com

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After a life marbled with exploration, academia, and domesticity, the writer Valerie Lester retired to a residential hospice and set about enjoying the final act of her life. She died nine weeks later, having engaged in dying with equanimity, curiosity, and even amusement.

In Absolutely Delicious, Valerie’s daughter describes a journey that illuminates the benefits of acceptance and the many gifts offered by daring to own one’s end.

“As a palliative care physician I've read countless stories about dying patients but none as engaging and original as this, opening my eyes to what's possible for future patients and families I care for.” - Jane deLima Thomas, MD, Palliative Care Physician, Harvard Medical School

http://www.alisonjeanlester.com

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If you are feeling stuck or looking for more energy or inspiration, Reiki can be the key to breaking a habit, or cyclical behavior. Reiki truly can help you discover the new chapters of your life story, which are waiting to unfold.

Vicky works with clients in private sessions, at her studio, and remotely, through distance sessions. She also conduct workshops and private training and instruction. Reiki can help from near or far, in groups or one-on-one.

Work with Vicky. Reiki can help you manifest the goals you are looking to achieve and can help you balance your energy body, to maintain optimal wellness in your physical body. Reiki is for everyone.

Vicky is also a writer/producer and have worked in television for over twenty-five years. She has been a storyteller. Vicky believes that Reiki is the ultimate story telling tool, as it takes you into someone’s energy field and helps you discover areas where they are holding trapped energy, which is keeping them stuck.

Vicky's writing and producing experience, infused with Reiki training, is helpful in working with clients, to realize their dreams and spark their creativity, in all areas of life. Your stories are what got you here, but they don’t define you. You can turn the page to new beginnings, at any time.

https://ronceroreiki.com

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This is their love story, their partnership, the brave territory they traversed, including how they prepared themselves with proper medical and legal guidance when electing to VSED. Choosing to Die is filled with emotional depth and sensitivity as well as practical information outlining the process from beginning to end.

Phyllis shares every detail, including what Alan experienced during the nine-and-a-half days it took for him to die, and how the experience transformed Phyllis. This book provides a deeper understanding of end of life choices, and for those diagnosed with a degenerative disease.

Phyllis Shacter is a retired teacher, business consultant, life coach, and public speaker. Choosing to Die and PhyllisShacter.com are the most comprehensive resources on the subject of VSED available today.

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Due to the enormous number of the elder population, there is an overwhelming need for these services and support. Finding the right teacher and training program is one of the most important decisions you will make.

International Doulagivers Institute, founded by Suzanne O’Brien RN, providing the highest level of education and certification for the End of Life Doula. Our Doulagiver training is akin to the birth doula model: both help people transition to and from this world. Facilitating this process requires education, training and compassion. Our certified End of Life Doulas are a global community working as an adjunct to Hospice and providing care and guidance for patients and families at the end of life.

And you can find everything you need at Doulagivers, an internationally recognized leader in end of life training programs and care.

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Dr. Connie Ducaine is the Senior Vice President of Strategic Solutions at Vital Decisions and started her career with the organization 9 years ago working directly with health plan members who were approaching end of life. Through her clinical work, Dr. Ducaine has witnessed the benefits of advance care planning and patient engagement. As a licensed professional counselor, Dr. Ducaine continues to support individuals who are coping with various mental health issues. Dr. Ducaine is recognized as a visionary leader and trusted advisor with long-term executive relationships focused on providing support and programming for counselor educators and supervisors in the state.

https://vitaldecisions.net

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Neil sees radical listening and reverent attentiveness as a spiritual practice. He meets individuals where they are and focus on helping them increase their ability to cope with what are often extraordinary circumstances. The focuses may be to increase ones’ ability to manage change, vulnerability, anxiety, fear, and the overwhelming heartache that emerges. It may include assisting individuals to connect or reconnect to practices, people, and principles that matter most to them. Neil may use poetry to provide additional comfort, deepen the space between us, and encourage reflection and opening.

Neil Beresin helps individuals reflect on, metabolize, and shape their loss in a safe, sacred, meditative space.

www.griefandpoetry.com

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Before I Go Solutions is a social enterprise (sometimes known as a not-for-profit).

We help people all over the world to actually get their plans done!

Through your donation, no matter how big or small, you would be contributing to

the sponsorship of someone of a low income from a developing country who would be a suitable candidate for the end of life plan Facilitators Training - thereby bringing this work to their local communities.

If you'd like to help in this way, please donate now, and help one person's life to grow so they can help others. Every donation counts towards our mission: "having end of life plans become as commonplace as birth plans!"

https://beforeigosolutions.com

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When her father was terminally ill, she experienced first-hand the difficulties families face when confronted with end-of-life issues. The dreaded decision to stop curative care and begin comfort care was monumentally difficult but resulted in a transformative experience for Ms. Stein and her family. She was moved to write a book about it, from a family member’s point of view.

Ms. Stein’s opinion pieces have appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Daily News, Pasadena Star-News, Orange County Register, and the Jewish Journal for more than twenty years. She writes about a variety of life experiences, such as caring for aging parents, raising children, and reflections on work, friendship, and nature. Loving Choices, Peaceful Passing: Why My Family Chose Hospice is her first book.

Ms. Stein was Manager of the Los Angeles County Health Insurance Counseling and Advocacy Program (HICAP) for the California Department of Aging. She trained volunteer peer counselors in Medicare and related health insurance, provided community education, and advocated for changes in Medicare law to benefit seniors.

She was Director of Volunteers at the Aviva Center, a residential treatment facility for abused and neglected adolescent girls. As Director of Volunteer Development for Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles, she trained Girl Scout leaders in outdoor skills and troop management. As Park Ranger at Monrovia Canyon Park, she trained and directed a corps of Volunteer Rangers and led local schoolchildren on educational hikes through the canyon.

Ms. Stein received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Psychology from California State University – Northridge. 

https://www.valleeview.com

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Allison’s other books include, Parentless Parents: How the Loss of Our Mothers and Fathers Impacts the Way We Raise Our Children and Always Too Soon: Voices of Support for Those Who Have Lost Both Parents. She is also co-editor of Covering Catastrophe: Broadcast Journalists Report September 11, the definitive historical record of how broadcast journalists covered that tragic day. The landmark book was turned into a documentary by the U.S. State Department and distributed to embassies and consulates around the world. Allison is the official narrator of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum’s core historical exhibition audio tour and her voice is introduced by Robert De Niro on the museum’s “Witnessing History” tour, the only female journalist to be so honored.

On Allison’s popular grief and resilience blog, she features Q & A’s with some of the most notable names in our culture today including, Arianna Huffington, Jon Stewart, and New York Times bestselling authors Gretchen Rubin, Dani Shapiro, and Susan Orlean.

Allison is a sought-after expert on grief, loss, resilience, cancer prevention, and September 11, appearing on TODAY, CNN, and MSNBC. She’s appeared at New York Open Center with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Soledad O’Brien, and she’s frequently quoted in print and online, her perspective featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other publications.

Allison is a popular workshop leader and keynote speaker, helping individuals transform personal and professional setbacks into opportunity. She has spoken to such diverse groups as Google, Time Warner, National Association for Female Executives, Women’s Enterprise Development Center Inc., JCC in Manhattan, 92Y, Gilda’s Club, and New York Public Library. She also partners with hospitals, hospices, funeral homes, and religious institutions, to bring her one-of-a-kind Memory Bash® events to communities across the country. She has run these fun and meaningful events for many groups, including New Song Center for Grieving Children in Phoenix, Hospice of the South Shore in Boston, and NorthShore University Hospital and Hospice in Chicago, to name just a few. Allison has served as Executive Family & Memories Editor for Legacy Republic and spokesperson for Funeral Service Foundation’s Have the Talk of a Lifetimecampaign.

Her work can also be quite personal and revealing. After the death of Allison’s mother to ovarian cancer and her aunt and grandmother to breast cancer, (and following genetic testing that determined she is BRCA1 positive), she made the life-affirming choice to have two preventative cancer surgeries. Her pioneering series for HuffPost, “My Journey to Prevent Ovarian Cancer,” chronicles her decision to have a prophylactic hysterectomy. Allison writes about undergoing a double mastectomy in The New York Times and talks about the operation and recovery on MSNBC and with CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Allison started her career in TV news, covering most every major news story in the last 20 years — including 9/11, when she was on the job and nearly killed by falling debris. At CNN, Allison produced TV segments and wrote stories for CNN.com. Before CNN, she was a special projects producer at WABC-TV and an investigative producer at WNBC-TV, both in New York. She was also part of the original launch teams for New York 1 News and MSNBC. Allison currently serves as Senior Writer for The Center for Parent and Teen Communication, located within the Division of Adolescent Medicine at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Allison has received three Emmy awards and six Emmy nominations for various hard news reporting. She’s been awarded first place for consumer investigation by the National Association of Black Journalists, won “Best Multi-Part Investigative Series” by the Society of Professional Journalists, and received “Best Public Service” award by the Associated Press. For Parentless Parents, she’s winner of the Washington Irving Book Award.

Allison graduated from Georgetown University and lives outside New York City. She and her husband have a son in college and a daughter soon to finish high school. You can learn more about her here: www.allisongilbert.com.

https://www.allisongilbert.com/courses/

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Allison’s other books include, Parentless Parents: How the Loss of Our Mothers and Fathers Impacts the Way We Raise Our Children and Always Too Soon: Voices of Support for Those Who Have Lost Both Parents. She is also co-editor of Covering Catastrophe: Broadcast Journalists Report September 11, the definitive historical record of how broadcast journalists covered that tragic day. The landmark book was turned into a documentary by the U.S. State Department and distributed to embassies and consulates around the world. Allison is the official narrator of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum’s core historical exhibition audio tour and her voice is introduced by Robert De Niro on the museum’s “Witnessing History” tour, the only female journalist to be so honored.

On Allison’s popular grief and resilience blog, she features Q & A’s with some of the most notable names in our culture today including, Arianna Huffington, Jon Stewart, and New York Times bestselling authors Gretchen Rubin, Dani Shapiro, and Susan Orlean.

Allison is a sought-after expert on grief, loss, resilience, cancer prevention, and September 11, appearing on TODAY, CNN, and MSNBC. She’s appeared at New York Open Center with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Soledad O’Brien, and she’s frequently quoted in print and online, her perspective featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other publications.

Allison is a popular workshop leader and keynote speaker, helping individuals transform personal and professional setbacks into opportunity. She has spoken to such diverse groups as Google, Time Warner, National Association for Female Executives, Women’s Enterprise Development Center Inc., JCC in Manhattan, 92Y, Gilda’s Club, and New York Public Library. She also partners with hospitals, hospices, funeral homes, and religious institutions, to bring her one-of-a-kind Memory Bash® events to communities across the country. She has run these fun and meaningful events for many groups, including New Song Center for Grieving Children in Phoenix, Hospice of the South Shore in Boston, and NorthShore University Hospital and Hospice in Chicago, to name just a few. Allison has served as Executive Family & Memories Editor for Legacy Republic and spokesperson for Funeral Service Foundation’s Have the Talk of a Lifetimecampaign.

Her work can also be quite personal and revealing. After the death of Allison’s mother to ovarian cancer and her aunt and grandmother to breast cancer, (and following genetic testing that determined she is BRCA1 positive), she made the life-affirming choice to have two preventative cancer surgeries. Her pioneering series for HuffPost, “My Journey to Prevent Ovarian Cancer,” chronicles her decision to have a prophylactic hysterectomy. Allison writes about undergoing a double mastectomy in The New York Times and talks about the operation and recovery on MSNBC and with CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Allison started her career in TV news, covering most every major news story in the last 20 years — including 9/11, when she was on the job and nearly killed by falling debris. At CNN, Allison produced TV segments and wrote stories for CNN.com. Before CNN, she was a special projects producer at WABC-TV and an investigative producer at WNBC-TV, both in New York. She was also part of the original launch teams for New York 1 News and MSNBC. Allison currently serves as Senior Writer for The Center for Parent and Teen Communication, located within the Division of Adolescent Medicine at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Allison has received three Emmy awards and six Emmy nominations for various hard news reporting. She’s been awarded first place for consumer investigation by the National Association of Black Journalists, won “Best Multi-Part Investigative Series” by the Society of Professional Journalists, and received “Best Public Service” award by the Associated Press. For Parentless Parents, she’s winner of the Washington Irving Book Award.

Allison graduated from Georgetown University and lives outside New York City. She and her husband have a son in college and a daughter soon to finish high school. You can learn more about her here: www.allisongilbert.com.

https://www.allisongilbert.com/courses/

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Liz lost her dad as a young kid, when her grandmother (dad’s mom) died in the winter of 2018, she was tasked with all of the planning that ensued. She walked into the nursing home where her grandmother lived and was confronted with two police officers, a nurse, her grandmother’s body, and a question of “what do you want to do next?” Needless to say, the experience was overwhelming, complicated, and pretty much entirely unguided.

Liz started asking questions about why a better option didn’t exist and turned to Alyssa, her go-to person for cracking a difficult challenge. Together they started answering that question with “it should and we should build it.”

Liz built her first company at 15 and led communications from inception for the nation's first free, 24/7 crisis support line, Crisis Text Line. She's also a board member of Experience Camps, a free summer camp for grieving kids.

https://lantern.co

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http://laurasterner.com/

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Available to preorder from Waterstones (hardback) and Barnes & Noble (ebook)

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Lesleigh has suffered the loss of dear friends to cancer, to suicide, and to a plane crash. She has weathered the deep emotional loss of beloved pets. She knows the heartache of divorce in early life and the sadness of a final farewell to her late ex-husband. Later in life, Lesleigh is now married to a wonderful man, a former widower and has experienced how loss and change can impact a loving family. Lesleigh knows firsthand the vulnerability of dating a widower, blending families, and creating a flourishing relationship.

It is these life experiences, combined with her education, training and deep empathy for human suffering that make her so proud to do this work. Today, Lesleigh has joy in her life and considers it an honor to help others reclaim their heart and their lives through the Grief Recovery Method.

https://lesleighjtolin.com

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Jay Niver is a retired journalist and public relations consultant who became involved in the right-to-die movement by supporting and documenting his father's "final exit.” An Ohio native, Jay worked 30 years in the Carolinas before moving to Canada and returning after his wife's long, drawn-out surrender to terminal disease. He has extensive experience in corporate and healthcare communications, as well as editing newspapers and specialized publications.

Jay@dyingrightnc.org

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Over the next few months, the group met and decided to offer educational programs and resources through a non-profit organization they would call Kitchen Table Conversations. They felt the name of the organization would encourage people to have the end of life conversations in the comfort of their homes instead of during a medical crisis in the ICU. 

July 1, 2017, this web site was launched. The first workshop was offered the following month. In October, AARP of Central Texas began sponsoring The 3 Ds of Advance Care Planning: How to Decide, Discuss, and Document Your End of Life Wishes workshops. 

In 2020 AARP will sponsor four such webinars that will reach thousands of Central Texans.

These workshops are facilitated by Garrick Colwell, President, and CEO of Kitchen Table Conversations. Garrick has been a Hospice Volunteer since 1987, serving as an on-call hospital and hospice chaplain. He is a Respecting Choices® Person-Centered Care 

First Steps® Advance Care Planning Certified Instructor and Facilitator. 

As a Certified Grief Recovery Specialist, he co-created with Hospice Austin Conversations On Grief, a monthly online grief support program. As a volunteer, he co-facilitates drop-in and loss of spouse grief support groups.

Garrick has completed over 200 hours of study with a grief expert David Kessler at grief.com. David is the author of five bestselling books on grief. His first book, The Needs of the Dying, is a #1 best-selling hospice book praised by Mother Teresa. He co-authored with the 

legendary Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, MD, both On Grief and Grieving and Life Lessons. David's most recent book Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief, was published in November 2019.

Recently, Garrick completed 240 hours of training with the author, educator, and griefcounselor Alan Wolfelt, Ph.D., CT, and holds a Death and Grief Studies certificate from the internationally recognized Center for Loss and Life Transition, a private an organization founded by Dr. Wolfelt that is dedicated to furthering our understanding of grief. 

In 2020 Kitchen Table Conversations began offering their Grief Education webinar series. Topics, dates, and times can be found on our Home Page; click on Grief Education.

Garrick can be reached at 512-787-3402 or

garrick@KitchenTableConversations.org  

Host a Kitchen Table Conversations Webinar, Activity, or Event

If you're interested in hosting a FREE workshop, activity, or event on Advance Care Planning  for your company, faith community or special interest group,  please call us today at 512-787- 3402.

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Her first book, Motherless Daughters, was a #1 New York Times bestseller and appeared on multiple bestseller lists worldwide. Her work has been translated into 14 languages and published in 11 countries. Hope is the author of seven additional nonfiction books, including Motherless Mothers and the memoir The Possibility of Everything. She was the recipient of the 2020 Community Educator Award from the Association for Death Education and Counseling and has won a Puschcart Prize for her creative nonfiction.

In addition to writing and speaking, she is a certified Martha Beck Life Coach and also leads nonfiction workshops to help writers tell, revisit, and revise their stories of loss. Hope lives and works in Los Angeles and Iowa City.

The AfterGrief Overview

Drawing on her own encounters with the ripple effects of early loss, as well as on interviews with dozens of researchers, therapists, and regular people who’ve been bereaved, New York Times bestselling author Hope Edelman offers profound advice for reassessing loss and adjusting the stories we tell ourselves about its impact on our identities.

With guidance for reframing a story of loss, finding equilibrium within it, and even experiencing renewed growth and purpose in its wake, she demonstrates that though grief is a lifelong process, it doesn’t have to be a lifelong struggle.

https://hopeedelman.com/books/the-aftergrief/

We don’t ever ‘get over’ the death of a loved one.

But we do eventually ‘get on‘ with living in a world without this essential person by our side.

It takes time to learn how to live in this new world. It takes time.”

— HOPE EDELMAN

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Tuesday, December 1, 5 p.m. Pacific Time

Join us for a live performance of Elizabeth Coplan's play Untold, and join Dr. Jillian Tullis, University of San Diego, to discuss communication challenges and grief that arise after a stillbirth.Veteran Grief Dialogues actors (Left to Right) Gretchen Douma, Shane Regan, and Joanne Burger perform in this live performance.

Following the performance, Dr. Jillian Tullis will discuss the communication challenges from witnessing a baby’s death. Is it truly "the smallest yet most powerful thing we can do."

Jillian A. Tullis, Ph.D. (Far right) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of San Diego. Her teaching and research interests focus on health communication, specifically communication about dying and death in healthcare settings. Tullis’ scholarship used qualitative methods to study such topics as hospice team communication, tumor boards, spirituality, dying, death, quality of life, and a “good death.”

Warning: The play contains scenes of childbirth and may trigger feelings of depression and grief especially among those who have suffered miscarriage, stillbirth, failed IVF, and/or unsuccessful adoption.

 https://letsreimagine.org/58851/untold-creating-space-for-loss-after-stillbirth

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What she did choose to do was peel herself out of bed those first few weeks of mourning, and with constant love and support from family and friends, she found a well of inner strength and she dipped down into it. Working through her own grief and the grief of her children, Eileen experienced a gradual spiritual awakening. The result? On the other side of tragedy, she found new love, gave birth to a miracle child, and rediscovered her calling: to build stronger, loving and ever evolving families.

Eileen believes we don’t always get to choose what happens to us, but we do get to choose the story we tell when asked, “What happened?”

With the intention of helping others tap into their inner resilience and reimagine adversity as an opportunity for growth, Eileen shares her story of loss and rebuilding in her memoir, Time to Fly. Because of her story—thanks to her story—Eileen has dedicated her life’s work to carrying on the legacy of the family she grew up with, the family she created with Brian and the family she continues to grow with Mike.

Eileen holds transformational retreats in Chicago, Los Cabos and elsewhere. As a public speaker, certified yogi, holistic nutritionist, and life coach with an MBA, Eileen brings a practical, holistic and humanistic approach to everything she does. From creative advising to impact investing, to building strength emotionally or physically, Eileen holds space to stay focused on what she believes matters most—family, friends, and community.

https://www.eileenrobertsonhamra.com

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https://www.cthealthcareathome.org

Tracy Wodatch

President & CEO

Courtney Verissimo

Membership & Events Manager

Doreen Napoli

Education & Events Planner

Alison Clark

Operations Manager

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What makes Olga a great mentor is her ability to recognize that we all posses our own inner wisdom when it comes to death, dying, loss and bereavement, and that being a mentor is to assist in the expansion of that wisdom by offering new information, knowledge and insight. “I have learned much from my own mentors, teachers and guides, and strive to provide a non-judgemental approach to guide anyone in their own personal learning.”

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Adams is currently based in Urbana, Illinois. In collaboration with the institute, he promotes an alternative health care model not funded by insurance policies.

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MY STORY

On any given day, from my practice in Dover, MA, I speak with weight management clients from Seattle to Baltimore who seek compassionate support and expertise. Via phone, Skype or in person, I help many do the seemingly impossible: lose weight and develop skills to prevent weight gain.

On a parallel track are clients who have experienced heartbreaking loss: both human and four-footed. Grief is an experience deserving compassion and expert care. If dismissed, suppressed or silenced, a world of pain may remain. In a culture that is ever hesitant to truly acknowledge the oh-so-human phenomenon of mourning, I have dedicated myself to providing a home for a different, kinder path.

I discovered my constellations of callings through a series of events over the course of life.

I began working with overweight patients in 1982. As an early stage employee of Health Management Resources, a Boston based start-up committed to providing effective, high quality behavioral treatment for overweight, I became Director of Overweight Treatment. HMR, a company on the rise and requiring many hours of dedication from each employee, was the perfect training ground as I was determined to make a difference with a population in despair. In my role, I co-led teams of trainers who implemented the program nationally, rapidly sharing and bringing this effective treatment method to many.

Fast-forward fifteen years, while raising two children, Kerrin and Devon, and wanting to spend more time closer to home, I launched my private practice in Dover, MA. Bringing a compassionate, effective approach that would have a lasting impact requires teaching clients skills for weight loss and the prevention of weight regain. Working closely with my clients and having an appreciation for the deep challenge health management represents, allowed individuals and families to re-set, attaining lower weights and establishing healthier lifestyles. My practice quickly grew.

While working closely with my clients on weight over many years, I also shared their personal losses - a parent, a child, a friend. In addition, I experienced the illness and passing of several dear to me. As a result, in 2013, I began to explore the profound challenges related to the process of mourning. This path included post-graduate training and many hours as a hospice volunteer. With these experiences and training, I incorporated grief support counseling into my practice.

https://www.mariahriess.com/my-story

“The world of loss is omnipresent in our lives. Grief does not have an expiration date. Often complex, heartbreaking, and confusing, loss may be difficult to make sense of or for others to be around. Grief and loss work is the way in which I can hold the hand of another and not let go, when others might.”

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https://www.thehospiceheart.net

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PartnerPlus Media 

PartnerPlus Media supplies print and digital marketing solutions to thousands of businesses and non-profit organizations in the United States, Canada, and the UK. For over 20 years, they have worked with clients from world-renowned brands. PartnerPlus Media is passionate about working with those who make a difference in the lives of hospice patients. The innovative vision of PartnerPlus Media has helped develop a unique resource guide for hospices to utilize within their local community. The organization is a member of the National Hospice & Palliative Care Organization as well and maintains close relationships with leading hospices in the United States. In this time of uncertainty, PartnerPlus Media is committed to expanding the knowledge of end-of-life services at no charge to the hospice agencies locally supporting families and patients every day. www.partnerplusmedia.com

Death by Design 

Many of you may know me, but for the newbies, I’m Kimberly C. Paul. I have worked in the end-of-life field for 20 years. I initially worked in television and film but when I lost my boyfriend to cancer, my world imploded. It changed my direction by creating a path into a very dark tunnel called grief. With my creative background, I wanted to give back to hospices. What was initially a temporary career, became a lifelong passion. Through my Ted Talk, Podcast (Death by Design), and book (Bridging the Gap), I’m hoping to expand awareness about hospice services on a local, community, medical and  personal level. I’m thrilled to collaborate with PartnerPlus Media to introduce new and innovative ways to enhance brand, language, and educational tools as well as build a new community relationship that ultimately supports local hospices in their area. Combining my talent for creative marketing and my passion to serve those facing a life-limiting illness is my commitment. Together, we can radically change how individuals face the end of their lives.   www.deathbydesign.com 

The benefits of working with Death by Design and PartnerPlus Media are:

·     Over 20 years of creative hospice marketing experience exceeding census and referral goals. 

·     Working with a world-renowned creative design team to enhance your hospice brand 

·     Increasing your outreach efforts by expanding community relationships and growing potential fundraising opportunities. 

·     Working with a team specializing in the supply of innovative, no-cost marketing solutions.

·     Providing in-home resources for families on how to provide a safe environment when caring for a loved one with a serious illness (fall prevention tips).

·     Providing a central location for all hospice contact numbers for families to prevent unnecessary 911 calls / ER visits.

·     Creating an effective “leave behind” for families not ready to accept the hospice philosophy upon initial referral as a community educational tool for families.

·     Deliver essential information to patients and families, including carbonated / perforated forms such as admission paperwork, advance directives, supply lists, donations, etc.

We, Kimberly C. Paul and PartnerPlus Media, look forward to supporting your hospice and growing the community message and resources for those facing life-limiting illnesses.  

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November 13- 15, 2020

Everyone has a calling. Michele Little’s happened to come her late 50's. Michele’s experiences in life, both personally and professionally, have given her the tools and skills to be of service to those facing end of life. As a Death Midwife, event planner and end of life leader, she believes the time is now to celebrate our lives combining our dying and death as a continuum of life. Michele created the Beautiful Dying Expo which launched in San Deigo in 2019.  Now in the most challenging times we’ve seen, the 2020 Beautiful Dying Expo goes virtual. Give yourself permission to take this dying and death conversation to the next level; that of having a plan of action with the assistance from experts and professionals in the field of Palliative Care, Hospice, Family-Assisted Memorials, Funerals, Vigils, Rites of Passage and more. 

www.beautifuldyingexpo.com

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One Last Thing is a video experience accompanied by a digital lifebook; a place for everything you need to share the story about your life and plan for death. One Last Thing takes the guesswork out of how to get started. We guide you and provide thought-starters, so it feels natural to share memories, tell your story, and express what matters most.

One Last Thing makes a tough thing easier. We cover the tactical aspects such as your:

• medical and healthcare directives
• estate and finances
• digital life
• memorial
• personal belongings

...and then we get to the good stuff, the lessons you've learned, your secrets to a good life, and so much more. We even guide and support you as you write letters that will be sent after you're gone, a treasure that will stay with your loved ones.

One Last Thing is your story of living and dying well. The end result is a cover to cover, comprehensive lifebook that’s uniquely about you.

Early backers will get access to our private online community for live Q&A's, interviews, webinars, and additional content.

Fawn: As a hospice volunteer, an end-of-life Doula, and now an educator, I understand the complexities of dying and the difficulties loved ones face when managing their affairs after their loved one has passed on. There’s so much that’s missing currently in the way that we die.

Michael: As a storyteller and visual arts creator, the thing I keep returning to is that I want my life to mean something. Something I can pass on that will be of use to those that come after me. When we share our stories, truths, perspectives with others, that's how we pass down our values and traditions.

Join the Kickstarter...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/onelastthing/one-last-thing?ref=project_email

There is no greater gift to those we love and ourselves, then to have a chance to share that.

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With nearly 30 years of experience in professional education, from high school through the graduate level, Professor Cantù’s articles have appeared in such publications as the Organization of American Historians’ Magazine of History, American Historical Association Perspectives, National Council for History Education History Matters, and the Journal of the Association for History and Computing. He is also the author of a number of books and curriculum monographs: Presidential Elections: 1789-1996, Early Education in Arkansas Delta, An Investigation of the Relationship Between Social Studies Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices, The Vietnam War: A National Dilemma, and Take Five Minutes: Reflective and Critical Thinking American History Class Openers.  

In addition, Dr. Cantù’s most recent book publications include the following: The Art and Science of Elementary Social Studies Education, 2nd Edition (2015), ILTS: Test for Academic Proficiency (2013), History/Social Studies Education in the Digital and Standards-Based Classroom (2012), Technology Applications for the Digital Classroom (2011), The Art and Science of Elementary Social Studies Education (2010), History Education 101: The Past, Present, and Future of Teacher Preparation (2008), and Teaching History in the Digital Classroom (2003). He has also served as a curriculum writer for various national organizations including The History Channel, The Wall Street Journal Classroom Edition and PBS Frontline, and as editor of The International Journal of Social Education.

Dr. Cantù has also served in a variety of leadership positions in professional organizations, including service as President of the American Association for History and Computing, President of the Indiana Council for the Social Studies and Missouri Council for the Social Studies, and Chair of three National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) Committees. In addition, he currently serves on a number of national governing boards and editorial boards; including as a member of the Governing Board of the National Social Science Association (NSSA), and House of Delegates for the National Council for the Social Studies. At the state level, Professor Cantu currently serves as a member of the Illinois State Educator Preparation and Licensure Board for the Illinois State Board of Education; Past-President of the Illinois Association for Teacher Education in Private Colleges (IATEPC); Communications Director for the Illinois Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (IACTE); and Executive Director of the Illinois Council for the Social Studies (ICSS). 

Ted Talk: Memento Mori: the personification of Death

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvnnqRy6ctI&feature=emb_logo

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Hand-crafted from local New Brunswick pine, his creations are elegantly laying down those to rest who prefer the simple things in life. With ever growing costs and complications in the funeral process, Fiddlehead Casket Company seeks to reduce stress, both financially and emotionally, offering an environmentally friendly pine casket. Even the cherry dowels used for joinery are handmade, and a refined casket is born at the hands of Burrill.

You can reach Jeremy any time at jeremy@fiddleheadcaskets.com

http://www.fiddleheadcaskets.com

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I can’t unsee the staples and indent on his head left behind from a piece of removed skull to make way for the tumor that would take his life. 

I can’t unhear the sounds of my mom’s desperate voice when she discovered he had died while she was sitting in the room.

I can’t unpack how a man can be playing nine holes of golf and splitting wood one day to speaking gibberish on the next.

I can’t understand how a 59yo man isn’t alive to see my or my sister’s wedding, future children, and kickass career. 

I can’t undo the agonizing pain of withholding the truth of my experience. 

My dad had died. And when he did... it blew the lid off my happy family. 

My life was permanently, and irreversibly changed. 

I have been intimate with death. 

<LONG PAUSE>

Everyone and everything on this planet will face the same fate. Stories make it easier. These are those. 

This is The Death Diaries. I am your host, Paul King. 

On this podcast, I’m welcoming conversations about death. 

Together, we’ll seek the deeper meaning of Life (and her wicked-but-misunderstood stepmother, Death.) 

Through self exploration, soul searching, and honest talk, I hope to normalize death.

This way, it won’t be so big and so scary when it happens to you. 

TRANSITION 

This is “D-Squared.” The episode where we square up with death, and don’t back down. 

If you love this episode as much as I do, head over to iTunes, stitcher or wherever you listen and subscribe. 

MAIN 

Dear Diary, Why are we here? If we’re born to die….. what’s the point? 

From the moment of birth you are on a slow and steady march towards dying. 

It seems to me like we’re in denial about what it’s going to be like to get intimate with death. Big time. No one wants to talk about it. We pretend it’s not even a thing, Not yet, anyway. Not for a good long while. At least I hope, rIght?

That seems like a pretty upside down way of thinking about something not a single living thing on this planet can escape. 

It’s almost like we think that just talking about it will bring down the hammer. 

Add in the feelings of isolation, shame, guilt, and denial, the stigma….. It’s really bringing us down. You know, as a people. 

To be ready for anything, it behooves humanity to be a lot more open to understanding death. 

I mean, what really does happen when you expire as a person….. or as a dog? What is the natural process, Diary? I just can’t wrap my head around it. 

How do we talk to the kids, what’s considered “normal” in grieving, and what the hell do I do next? 

I’m tired of feeling uncomfortable, that butterflies in the tummy feeling that means HIGH ANXIETY. (Yeah, yeah, THAT feeling. You know what I'm talking about.)

I’m sick of the topic being so taboo. It's one humongous elephant in the room. 

Diary, today I am taking my life back. 

I’m making a commitment to stop avoiding the topic.

We’re having the tough talk. And We’re putting it all on the table. 

Just listen. 

TRANSITION

All I wanna know is, are you in? I double dog dare you stop ignoring the big, scary topic of death and be ready to face it like the resourceful, brave, and authentic human you are. 

Let’s get it out there. 

Are you afraid to die? Fear that someone that you love is going to die? 

We're going to talk about planning for death and really taking control of how you personally will die. What happens physically during the death? And what happens afterwards?

The Death Diaries Podcast is going to explore different philosophies and talk to people from all walks of life, different backgrounds. What is their story? 

Reincarnation, heaven versus hell, and multiple philosophies around this and that. We’re going to talk about after death rituals and ceremonies, the celebrations of life, and burials.

Let’s go deep on how to talk about death, with adults and kids. 

While we’re at it, let’s dissect the whole grieving process. There are a ton of feelings that come with it, the isolation, feeling ashamed, the lack of knowledge…..and a lot of that leads to denial. 

And just what does it mean to live a fruitful, fulfilled life? we're born to die so what are we doing every day to live this fulfilled life that truly makes all of us happy? 

We'll talk about dying in the digital age and social media. We're going to talk about all that stuff.

So if you (or someone you know) has an experience or a story you'd like to share, head on over to thedeathdiariespodcast.com and let us know. We'd love to have you on the show.

Again, it's thedeathdiariespodcast.com. 

OUTRO

This has been the first episode of The Death Diaries Podcast with your host Paul King.

Subscribe on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts to be notified of future episodes. Let’s talk about death, are you in? 

https://www.thedeathdiariespodcast.com

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That which makes us whole -- our commonalities and differences, individually and collectively -- represents the very heart of all Meaningful Trainings services. We believe the power of our story applies in any setting: that is how accumulated experience, perspective and knowledge are put to work within ourselves and with others.

W. Blair Jennings, Wells College 1986, B.A. English

Blair has engaged in a variety of occupations and endeavors that read less like a resume and more like a mystery in that she admittedly wonders "what next?" and/or "why?". A seeker at heart, Blair has taken the opportunities presented and crafted them into her life's work: Meaningful Trainings.

Blair's professional arc encompasses roles as diverse as medical news producer, Montessori educator and YMCA Executive Director. In the spaces between she's been a spouse, mother, daughter, friend, writer and community advocate. Blair is enthused with an energy and creativity that ignites the motivation, creativity, seeking and practicality each Meaningful Training engagement.

Fell Cadwallader, Johnson & Wales University 1985, A.A. Culinary Science

Emerging from the stainless steel classroom of the culinary arts profession, Fell followed a simple rule:  

be willing to learn.

It continues to guide him in his personal and professional endeavors. Fell has always sought out a teacher who has mastered the talent he has wished to improve. Rather than believe that completion of one's training means he is ready to lead, Fell has always placed "ready to learn" first.

Over thirty years, Fell has followed a path stretching from Rhode Island to California and back again, choosing to work among those whose drive and imagination create environments that facilitate growth -- in the individual and the institution. His non-traditional path has imbued Fell's learning and experience with perspectives, lessons and stories that now infuse his training and coaching relationships with the sought after spark many seek and hope to bring to their own endeavors.

https://meaningfultrainings.com

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At a time of great demographic and cultural change in our society, Dr. Fratkin has created ResoultionCare to insure high quality, innovative and soulful care of everyone, everywhere as they approach end of life.

ResolutionCare leverages partnerships with existing healthcare providers and payers to provide telehealth applications that enhance greater quality of living, which provides a grater quality of dying.  This revolutionary approach to delivering Palliative Care to all communities is built around patient inclusion with a highly qualified Palliative Care Team. ResolutionCare’s team openly shares expertise and mentors individuals so they can receive the care they need where they live and, most importantly, on their own terms.

https://www.resolutioncare.com

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www.justincaseplanning.com

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http://ragcoaching.com

rachelgigerconsulting@gmail.com

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The authors co-led the support group and partnered with the men to write their story, which is interspersed with the latest in bereavement research conveyed in an easily relatable way. The fathers' touching efforts to care for themselves, their families, and each other offers a gripping narrative that shows how each of us has the potential to rebuild new and meaningful lives.

Powerful, enlightening and hopeful, The Group will help you make sense of grief and inspire you to reimagine your life moving forward.

Justin Yopp, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he directs the pediatric psycho-oncology consultation services within the UNC Comprehensive Cancer Support Program.

https://www.amazon.com/Justin-M-Yopp/e/B076J6P5QB/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_book_2

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The Death Deck offers up thought-provoking questions with a large dose of humor to help take the taboo out of the topic of death. Unique among card decks and conversation tools, this witty game encourages players to share their thoughts and stories and gets people talking about personal preferences on life’s ultimate decisions in a non-threatening and surprisingly fun way.

ABOUT THE CREATORS

Lori LoCicero is a freelance writer and the co-creator of The Death Deck. A creative storyteller and eternal optimist, Lori combines her personal stories of loss with her innate sense of humor to write about life and talk about death. She has written and directed independent films, documentaries, and a variety of live gala events. Her upcoming memoir offers readers an intimate look at loss and her discovery of posttraumatic growth and was the catalyst for the creation of The Death Deck: a lively and humorous card game that inspires meaningful conversations on what matters most in our lives and in our deaths.

Lisa Pahl is a Hospice Social Worker, ER Crisis Interventionist, and co-creator of The Death Deck. Lisa’s goal is to help people cope with illness, dying, and grief. With a passionate belief that peace at the end begins with meaningful conversations over time, she engages people in talking about and preparing for this difficult stage of life. Embracing a challenging but equally rewarding career as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in both the trenches of ER and within her true passion working in hospice, Lisa has witnessed hundreds of deaths which have taught her innumerable lessons about truly appreciating life.

SOCIAL MEDIA INFO

Instagram & Twitter: @thedeathdeck

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedeathdeck/

Website: www.thedeathdeck.com

Email: thedeathdeck@gmail.com

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The client is then assessed for eligibility and if so determined, physician orders are established and the client may be admitted to hospice care. 

The service is comprised of an Interdisciplinary Approach that includes: 

• Medical Director
• Manager of Clinical Practice
• RN Case Manager
• Hospice Aide
• Medical Social Worker
• Chaplain
• Bereavement coordinator
• Registered Dietitian
• Volunteer Manager

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In addition to this memoir, I have written essays and made presentations. Some are upcoming. These include:

Speeches:

Columbia University Medical School, April, 2020.

TED-x Greensboro:  Developing Emotional Agility in Medical Practice (March, 2020)

“My Continuing Medical Education:  The Power of Human Touch.” Podium presentation at IAHC annual meeting in Greenville, SC., May 2019.  

Panel Director: “The power of writing to foster empathy and compassion,” Annual Schwartz Conference, Boston, September 2019.

Schwartz Rounds at Cone Health, May 2019 and March 2020.

“Grief As My Guide: How My Sister Made Me a Better Doctor,” Cone Health: CHES Series, June 2019.

Keynote speaker, Palliative Care Colloquium, Boston Archdiocese, May 2019.

“The Power of Human Touch,” IAHC Journal, in press.

“Cone Health:  Our Journey to Top Decile Physician Engagement,” Presented with Mickey Foster and Jonathan Berry, MD at Press Ganey Annual Meeting, Orlando, Florida, November 2018.

“On the Receiving End of Neurosurgical Care: Lessons I Have Learned,” presented at the 100thAnniversary of the Department of Neurosurgery foundation at The University of Michigan, Sept. 2018.

Writings:

“Dying in the Neurosurgical ICU,” The New York Times January 14, 2020.

“Moral Distress in Neurosurgery,” The New York Times, August 15, 2019.

“Grief As My Guide: How My Sister Made Me a Better Doctor,” The New York Times, Nov. 14, 2018. 

“Compassion Belongs in the Operating Room,” World Neurosurgery 132:441-442, December 2019. 

“A Week in Honduras, The impact of bringing spinal surgery to the NPH orphanage in Honduras through the auspices of One World Surgery,” March 2019.

“Grief Connects Us: A Doctor’s Lessons in Love, Loss, and Compassion” Memoir.

Podcasts and Radio:

Frankly Speaking About Cancer with Kim Thiboldeaux, Cancer Support Community,Aired May 21, 2019

Podcast with Jeffrey Segal, MD

Transcript and access to podcast is https://medicaljustice.com/dr-joseph-stern-and-dr-jeff-segal/

Webpage – josephsternmd.com

Dr. Stern earned his undergraduate and medical school degrees, as well as completed his internship and residency, at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.   He concluded a fellowship in pediatric scoliosis surgery with Dr. Jean Dubousset at the Hospital Saint Vincent de Paul in Paris, France, and since then, has been in continuous practice.  Dr. Stern has eight issued U.S. patents for medical devices.  

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As part of a large family, Noha Waibsnaider has planned a number of memorials and funerals. She has felt the challenges of organizing family and friends during these difficult times, and yearned for a simpler way to mobilize everyone and commemorate loved ones.

Noha created GatheringUs to bring communities together through shared memories, events, resources and funding — all in one place. Families can easily crowdfund expenses, giving communities the opportunity to contribute financial support for the funeral, related events, and to support the family.

Rooted in her Jewish tradition, Noha believes that those we have known live inside each of us, and we can keep a piece of them alive through the stories we share. The rituals of coming together after a death enable our communities to support each other in the healing process. In honoring each person's life, we can make events truly meaningful and inspiring.

Before starting GatheringUs, Noha founded Peeled Snacks, an organic food company. She lives in Brooklyn, with her husband and two kids.

https://www.gatheringus.com

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Michele Neff Hernandez is the founder, and Executive Director of Soaring Spirits International / Camp Widow. Ms. Neff Hernandez has been featured on numerous local, national, and International broadcasts for her work with Soaring Spirits, and the widowed community. Michele also inspires people as a motivational speaker, freelance writer, and is a member of the Bereavement Training Team for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Michele has contributed to over 100 different websites, blogs, and publications for single project work.

Camp Widow® is a unique and incredible experience. During the course of a weekend this program provides both practical tools and relevant resources for widowed persons rebuilding their lives in the aftermath of the death of a spouse or partner.

But the most important thing that Camp Widow® provides to the widowed people who attend is an in-person community of others who are making their way through widowhood one day at a time. Campers come from all over the country, and around the world, to meet other widowed people face to face, and to experience the camaraderie that this event creates.

You might imagine these gatherings are morose, but you will find that the truth is quite the contrary.

Among peers, lifted up by understanding, and validated in the uniqueness of every person’s unique grief recovery…the mood at Camp Widow®if hopeful, positive, and uplifting.

We hold three Camp Widow® events each year, two in the United States and one in Canada. Full details, and dates for each event, can be found at www.campwidow.org.

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Final Roadmap® is a web-based guide and toolkit focused on end of life issues. Its mission encourages you to Consider, Document & Communicate those wishes easily and safely. It allows end of life to be approached simply, privately, and securely.

Buy the Final Roadmap® Toolkit once and keep it forever.

Straightforward and comprehensive, this toolkit can be updated as much and as often as desired. This gives you, your family, friends and loved ones clarity and peace of mind during difficult times.

About The Founders Steve Byrne and Kerry Shannon

Kerry Shannon is a healthcare consultant with 30 years experience, who brings her MA/Bioethics and Health Policy degree to Final Roadmap®. Her job working in hospitals for decades allowed her to witness first-hand people suffering every day because their loved one did not provide any end of life planning.

Steve Byrne is a successful and experienced entrepreneur who has worked with hundreds of employees in fast-moving businesses. Having worked with so many people whose parents – not to mention themselves – had done little end of life planning, Steve recognized the deep market need.

To address this need, they created Final Roadmap®.

https://www.finalroadmap.com

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PS - I (Kimberly) feel lucky to call this Red headed Doctor a GOOD FRIEND.

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Bio:

Francesca Arnoldy, UVM alumna and longtime birth worker, is the course developer and program director of the University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine's End-of-Life Doula Professional Certificate Program. She is the author of Cultivating the Doula Heart: Essentials of Compassionate Care, and she regularly leads in-person workshops about doula approaches and end-of-life wishes. She works collaboratively with her local hospice and palliative care teams. Her goal is to encourage people to hold one another's hands through life's intensities and sacred rites of passage. Francesca lives in quaint Hinesburg, VT with her family in a most beloved village.  

Francesca can be found contemplating birth, death, and life with the doula heart on her website contemplativedoula.com. 

Contemplative Doula: https://contemplativedoula.com/

Cultivating the Doula Heart (guidebook): https://www.amazon.com/Cultivating-Doula-Heart-Essentials-Compassionate/dp/1732780609

UVM End-of-Life Doula Training Program: https://learn.uvm.edu/program/end-of-life-doula-certificate/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/contemplativedoula

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBqZMIDYIhkHc7nbya74SzA

Twitter: @DoulaFrancesca

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...whether it’s our own death, our loved ones, or our pets. Before I Die AZ brings together more than 20 leading Local and award winning National Speakers. Plus films, fun and valuable prizes to encourage this discussion. Everyone needs to be educated about living life, facing death and the emotional journeys in-between. While death may be the ultimate mystery, preparing for it need not be your ultimate fear. Instead, it’s a gift…to yourself and your loved ones. Join us in learning and exploring the many topics of life, death and beyond.

https://www.beforeidieaz.com

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The first book, How to Survive Life (and Death), A Guide to Happiness in This World and Beyond isdesigned to help you meet and deal with life's toughest inevitable challenges; and ways to overcome death and find lasting happiness through Radical Kindness, Radical Forgiveness, and Radical Surrender, all in an easy, light-hearted, (& hopefully a little funny) way.

Book:

How to Get to Heaven (Without Really Dying), Wisdom From a Near Death Survivor is all about finding Heaven based on the lessons of his three NDEs: Principles of human Perspective that come from an out-of-body experience; Presence learned in the eternal moment of a "life review," & from timeless wisdom texts; and practical ways to find your Purpose that come from being "forced back into life," that help you find and create Heaven on Earth. There are many ways to get there — without really dying.  

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Executive Director National POLST Paradigm

Less than a year after Amy's mother was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma she died. Amy's family were fortunate she had decision-making capacity until the end and that she could make treatment decisions for the immediate questions, as well as give them all directions about what was coming. Amy's family had those hard conversations about goals of care, her mother's wishes, and treatment decisions--they just all took place in a short time frame with an immediate impact. Amy's family were lucky. They were spared having to second-guess themselves about what her mother may have wanted.

Amy Vandenbroucke have always been interested in the intersection of health law and ethics. She was serving as Legal Counsel for Oregon Health & Science University when the opportunity for her to be an Associate Director at the OHSU Center for Ethics in Health Care opened. In that role, she served as Chair of the Oregon POLST Task Force for 2 years and the Executive Director of the National POLST Paradigm for 4 years (2 years of overlap). Amy is so grateful that the opportunity to help promote a process that can make end of life easier for patients and families, helping others have hard conversations and ensuring treatment preferences are elicited, documented and honored.

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Elizabeth Golding, DO, medical director of Cone Health Palliative Care Services, has been invited to join a state-wide task force. The goal of the task force is to develop a comprehensive plan to help individuals with serious illnesses and their caregivers across North Carolina. 

The task force hopes to:

• Make palliative, hospice and other similar types of care easier for patients to understand.
• Encourage patients and provides to discuss care when someone has a serious medical condition.
• Make it easier for patients to make their wishes known when faced with a critical medical condition.

The task force is being formed by the North Carolina Institute of Medicine (NCIOM) and will kick off in early 2019.

Don’t wait until a health crisis happens to talk about end-of-life care and Advance Directives. It’s one of the most important conversations to have. And it’s not just for the elderly or those with a serious illness. Don’t wait to start talking about your wishes. Join Elizabeth Golding, DO, medical director of the Cone Health Palliative Medicine Team, a member of Cone Health Medical Group, to learn more about the conversation you should have, but don't.

www.conehealth.com

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Heather is married to Edward Burton, also a South Carolina native, and they have two boys, Ethan and Olin. In their free time, they enjoy exploring the outdoors, spending time with family and discovering all that Greenville/Greer have to offer.

At Wren Hospice we believe that care should be patient-centered. We believe that hospice is a gift and we work around the clock to provide compassionate and attentive care to every person touched by our program.

Wren Hospice provides in-home care and inpatient care for people with life-limiting illnesses. We also strive to provide a positive, supportive environment for their families as well. We believe this time in the life of a family can be an opportunity for spiritual and emotional healing.

https://wrenhospice.com/about/

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Adam Hayden will be a featured speaker at this year's EndWell Conference in San Francisco. If you are interested in attending EndWell click here.

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For a culture that prides itself on aging well, it's time we learned how to die well. That's why we adopted the term "death literacy." 

Death literacy isn't some canned slogan, but a toolkit of knowledge and experiences that grow over the course of a lifetime. Your lifetime.

Death literacy asks one to consider their own end of life and then do something about it... long before the end. Becoming death literate signals an acceptance of mortality and a recognition there's tremendous value in preparing to prepare, while you're busy doing this thing called life.

Death literacy is something you do it for yourself, your loved ones and for generations to come. So start anywhere. You'll be surprised at how you'll begin looking at life in a whole new light.

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322 Events

105 Art Exhibits

60 Interactive Rituals 32 Performances

15 Comedy Shows

1 Universal Topic

The five boroughs of New York City are joining together to create over 250 events exploring death and celebrating life...from all perspectives.

After attending a Reimagine event, over 90% of attendees identified feeling more grateful for their lives and the people in it.

Death by Design Podcast partnered with Reimagine NYC to have an open conversation about end of life. It was an amazing evening.

Dr. Dawn Gross - Palliative Care Physician

Elizabeth Coplan - Playwright - The Grief Dialogues

MK Czerwiec- RN & Artist

Kimberly St. John - Palliative Care Nurse - UK

Linda Campanella, Author and Caregiver

Andrew MacPherson - Principal at Healthsperien

Alison Gilbert - Journalist & Author

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Emmy and Peabody award-winning, film producer, director and writer Helen Whitney has been a prolific creator of documentaries and feature films. Her compelling subject matter has included topics such as youth gangs, presidential candidates, the McCarthy era, mental illness, Pope John Paul II, Great Britain’s class structure, homosexuality and photographer Richard Avedon. Among the actors she has worked with: Lindsay Crouse, Austin Pendleton, David Strathairn, Brenda Fricker, Teresa Wright, Estelle Parsons.

Throughout her career, she has maintained a deep interest in spiritual journeys, which she first explored with her documentary The Monastery, a 90-minute ABC special, about the oldest Trappist community in the Americas. Whitney followed this film with a three-hour Frontline documentary for PBS, John Paul II: The Millennial Pope, and in 2007 she produced The Mormons, a four-hour PBS series that explored the richness, complexities and controversies surrounding the Mormon faith. Following the Sept. 11 attacks, she produced Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero, a two-hour documentary that examined how religious belief – and unbelief – of Americans was challenged and altered by the spiritual aftershocks of 9/11. The film has been repeated numerous times since it first aired in 2002, and it was a PBS featured presentation on the 1st and on the 10th anniversary of the attacks.

One of Whitney’s recent works examines the power, limitations, and in rare cases, the dangers of forgiveness through emblematic stories ranging from personal betrayal to genocide. This film involved shooting throughout America, and such countries as South Africa, Germany, Rawanda, The three-hour series, Forgiveness: A time to Love and a Time to Hate, aired on PBS in 2011 and it also inspired Whitney to write a book of the same title, with a forward written by the Dalai Lama.

The filmmaker has also received an Academy Award nomination, the Humanitas Prize, Emmys, two DuPont-Columbia Journalism Awards and many other recognitions for her work. She is a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, and has presented her films and lectured at universities, museums and churches around the country (including Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Brigham Young, Stanford, the National Cathedral, the Corcoran Gallery, the Minneapolis Art Institute). 

Into the Night: Portraits of Life and Death, a two-hour feature documentary, features fascinating, unexpected voices from various walks of life: old and young, believers and nonbelievers, the dying and the healthy, well known and obscure. Among them: Caitlin Doughty, an alternative mortician and bestselling author with her own YouTube following; Adam Frank, an astrophysicist and NPR commentator, Gabriel Byrne, renowned actor of stage and screen; Jim Crace, award-winning novelist and environmentalist; Max More, a cryonicist and futurist; Stephen Cave, a British philosopher; Phyllis Tickle, a near-death experience spokesperson and religious historian; Pastor Vernal Harris, a Baptist minister and advocate for hospice care in African-American communities; Jeffrey Piehler, a Mayo Clinic heart surgeon. However varied their backgrounds, all are unified by their uncommon eloquence and intelligence, and most important by their dramatic experience of death. Each of them has been shocked into an awareness of mortality–and they are forever changed. For them death is no longer an abstraction, far away in the future. Whether through a dire prognosis, the imminence of their own death, the loss of a loved one, a sudden epiphany, or a temperament born to question, these are people who have truly ‘awakened’ to their own mortality.

Into the Night creates a safe smart place that allows people to talk about a subject of universal importance. It is the conversation we yearn to have, but too often turn away from in fear and distress. Yet our culture is at a critical turning point, driven in part by the baby boomer generation that is insisting on a new openness and on this deeper conversation. Our film speaks to this emerging movement with a novel approach meant to provoke searching conversations, both private and public.

Ultimately the film is meant to raise questions, not to provide answers. How could it? Death is “that undiscovered country,” as Hamlet so famously described it, “from whose bourn/No traveler returns.”

https://www.intothenightdoc.com

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In August 2018, Cabot Cheese became the top sponsor of the Live Well Die Well Tour. When Kimberly C. Paul asked Roberta MacDonald why Cabot was interested in being the top sponsor she stated, "We are a Co-operative of Farm Families since 1919, our farmers have seen the cycle of life and death on the farm. They taught their children about life and death. The farmers have found a way to normalize the life cycle conversation. We thought we might help assist you and others on your Live Well Die Well Tour." Cabot Cheese sends cheese to all Kimberly's speaking engagements when requested.

Cabot Cheese has also has supported many Hospice projects as well as the death doula program at the University of Vermont. Roberta MacDonald has been the fire-starter and continues to personally volunteer her own time at her local hospice.

Death is a natural part of life. Even so, talking about death feels anything but natural.

According to the National Palliative Care Center, 20 percent of the United States’ population will be over age 65 by the year 2030—that’s more than 60 million people. Chances are, a significant portion of these seniors will be diagnosed with a terminal illness.

A recent article in the New York Times reported that, on average, patients make 29 visits to the doctor’s office in their last six months of life, even though 80 percent of patients say they hope to avoid hospitalization and intensive care at the end of life. Our healthcare system is designed to save lives—or attempt to do so—regardless of the outcome or impact on a patient’s quality of life. However, our healthcare system is only beginning to recognize the value of high quality end-of-life care.

Fortunately, there is a growing movement that helps fill the critical gap in end- of-life care. For the terminally ill, dying is a process they’re living through. End of-life doulas (also known as death doulas, soul midwives, transition coaches, and more), help the dying live better throughout the process—and ultimately die well.

https://www.cabotcheese.coop/blog/end-of-life-care/

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Frank has dedicated his life to service. It has been fusion of spiritual insight and practical social action. It manifests in caring for the homeless, serving on the early front lines AIDS epidemic, lobbying congress, teaching meditation and most daunting raising four teenagers at the same time.

He has distilled hard-won lessons from his own life journey and synthesized 30 years of being with dying into his personal brand of wisdom. He inspires and engages diverse audiences from Harvard Medical School students, to Mayo Clinic clinicians, and Wisdom 2.0 seekers. His work has been highlighted on The Oprah Winfrey Show, featured by Bill Moyers on his PBS television series On Our Own Terms and honored by H.H. the Dalai Lama.

He is the author of The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully.

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Since her book, Bridging the Gap, was published on April 13th, 2018, Kimberly is on to her next adventure of speaking throughout the United States. But she is doing it a little differently than anyone expected. In June 2018, she bought an RV, downsized her belongings and hit the road with her German Shepherd, Haven. Kimberly has named her adventure the “Live Well Die Well Tour” because she states, “The more I talk about death, the more boldly I feel I’m living life to the fullest.”

The tour jump started in Ohio alongside her ex-boyfriend’s parents (the boy who lost his life to cancer over 18 years ago). Kimberly states, “It was a way to put meaning into the beginning of the tour – to make sure it is always personal.” Now she is making her way through every state, with exception of Hawaii, to connect with people and communities, sign books and share how she learned to live life boldly at the bedside of hospice patients.

The Live Well Die Well tour is supported by over 20 sponsors including Cabot Cheese, My Last Soundtrack, Amedisys Hospice, INEDLA, National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, POLST Paradigm and many more who support community education in an effort to empower individuals to reclaim death as a human experience and not a medical event.

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Recent work includes More Together Than Alone (Atria, 2018), Things That Join the Sea and the Sky(Sounds True, 2017), a Nautilus Book Award Winner and cited by Spirituality & Practice as one of the Best Spiritual Books of 2017, The Way Under the Way: The Place of True Meeting (Sounds True, 2016), a Nautilus Book Award Winner, The One Life We're Given (Atria) cited by Spirituality & Practice as one of the Best Spiritual Books of 2016, Inside the Miracle (Sounds True), selected by Spirituality & Health Magazineas one of the top ten best books of 2015, The Endless Practice (Atria), cited by Spirituality & Practice as one of the Best Spiritual Books of 2014, his book of poems, Reduced to Joy (Viva Editions), named by Spirituality & Practice as one of the Best Spiritual Books of 2013, a 6CD box set of teaching conversations based on the poems in Reduced to Joy (Sounds True, 2014), and Seven Thousand Ways to Listen(Atria), which won the 2012 Books for a Better Life Award.

Mark was part of Oprah Winfrey's The Life You Want Tour in 2014 and has appeared several times with Oprah on her Super Soul Sunday program on OWN TV. He has also been interviewed by Robin Roberts on Good Morning America.  The Exquisite Risk was listed by Spirituality & Practice as one of the Best Spiritual Books of 2005, calling it "one of the best books we've ever read on what it takes to live an authentic life." Mark devotes his writing and teaching to the journey of inner transformation and the life of relationship. He continues to offer readings, lectures, and retreats. Please visit Mark as well at: threeintentions.com and http://wmespeakers.com/speaker/mark-nepo

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Jen offer mindfulness training and coaching, mindful life coaching, and wellness coaching to help you feel inspired and excited to wake up to your life every day. She will teach you how to develop a regular mindfulness practice and integrate it into everyday life.

Jen has been a mindfulness teacher and therapist for 30+ years, and she has had a camera in her hand since she was 7 years old.

Jen Johnson’s work is a blend of:

• mindfulness training, coaching, and therapy
• mindfulness based cognitive therapy
• mindfulness-based stress reduction
• wellness coaching
• writing meditation
• mindful writing for healing, therapeutic writing, and expressive writing
• photography meditation and therapeutic photography (phototherapy)
• EcoTherapy
• Energy psychology (EFT & TWR/WHEE / tapping) 

Jen Johnson’s work is grounded in neuroscience research and the neuroplasticity of the brain and how we can rewire the brain for greater peace and happiness. She has studied brain science since the early 1980s while working in the Neurotoxicology Division of the Health Effects Research Lab at the EPA and working with clients with brain injury at Shepherd Center rehabilitation hospital in the mid 1990s. Jen’s work with trauma survivors began in the early 1990s while serving as Helpline Director for a child abuse prevention crisis hotline. I then worked with spinal cord and brain injury survivors at Shepherd Center and later worked on a contractual basis as the statewide Coordinator for Independent Living Needs for the Veterans Administration in Georgia, and then creating a grant funded project, Invisible Wounds of War, that offered mindfulness, photography, and writing workshops for veterans.

Only by listening inwardly in a fresh and open way will you discern at any given time what most serves your healing and freedom.—Tara Brach

Jen has been a featured expert in magazines, radio, TV and blogs. Click the media links below to read Jen’s articles and interviews.

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Mike left his job at Amedisys Hospice in the Spring of 2020.

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BSW Health created this program with positions called Child Life Specialist to support these children through the process of an adults illness.  This program is providing the foundation for these children to have a healthy way to deal with real grief at a young age.  Many children who don’t receive this type of service end up dealing with their own grief in unhealthy ways as they grow into adulthood.

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Currently, Amy is an active contributor to PhillyVoice and wrote 6 of their top 10 most-read stories for 2015. She was recently quoted in a Wall Street Journal article on meditating with children. Amy published her first book Birth, Breath, and Death: Meditations on Motherhood, Chaplaincy, and Life as a Doula in March 2013 receiving substantial praise from key leaders in the fields of conscious birthing, living, and dying.

Amy’s second book Holding Space: On Loving, Dying, and Letting Go, published by Parallax Press, is now available.

http://www.birthbreathanddeath.com/

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Visit her website at www.thisisnotajourney.com

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A South Dakota native, Daschle obtained a degree at South Dakota State University, and also served in the United States Air Force. He was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1978 and served four terms. In 1986, he was elected to the Senate, becoming minority leader in 1994. Defeated for re-election in 2004, he took a position as a policy advisor with a lobbying firm, and also became a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. He co-authored a book advocating universal health care.

Tom is the co-chair of the 2017 C-TAC Summit in Washington DC.

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Tina is willing to speak to your group offering comprehensive training programs to help you take the fear out of conversations about hospice care, advance care planning, caregiving, palliative care and grief.

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Amy's mother died unexpectedly in late 2012 and left behind no paperwork that might help her take care of the hundreds of details that were left the day she died. On Sunday, My mother was here and on Monday she was not. In the midst of shock and grief, she was forced not only to deal with the intensity of my DNA leaving the planet, but she had to become a detective and administrator in order to eliminate her ‘paper presence’ on Earth. What bills needed paying? Did her mother have online accounts and what were the passwords? What happens to her mother's bank account? What did she want Amy to do with her personal belongings? Her laptop? Her photos?

When Amy realized that there wasn’t an instruction manual on how to get through it all, She decided to write one! 

Amy's exclusive Good To Go! paperwork eliminates stress, guilt and doubt, and provides those you leave behind with the certainty of knowing they are carrying out your wishes. Amy's personalized Good To Go! Death Directive will assure that everything will be just as you would like it. 

Your personal priorities, made clear today, will guide your family and loved ones on how they should take care of everything when the time comes.

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Death offers no second chances to get it right, not for the patient, the family or the caregiver. It’s a difficult experience for everyone, but Freeman has witnessed how every decision in end-of-life care has the power to make things better or make things worse.

“I once watched a mother try to touch her dying son through the gown and gloves they made her wear,” she said. But a call to the Infectious Diseases Department for new orders meant a mother’s last caresses didn’t include latex after all. It’s that individual approach that makes all the difference.

https://www.cityofhope.org/blog/cares-tool-nurse-practitioner-end-of-life-care

The Elephant In The Room, originally known as Resilient Hearts, is a film based on a novel of the same name I wrote in 2015 to share experiences encountered by members of a hospital team that care for the terminally ill and dying. This special form of medicine is called Palliative Care. I realized many healthcare providers did not know what we provided and the community was even less informed. I wanted to educate in a way that was both entertaining and informative. I felt a film would reach a broader audience and could be a tool to promote discussions about effective ways to communicate, the need for compassion, and show the difference a dedicated Palliative Care team can make in the lives of patients and their families. 

Palliative Care is a new branch of medicine designed to bring back the communication and the humanity often missing in today’s technology-based health care. Our focus is to help with symptom management and to address the physical, psychosocial, and spiritual needs of patients and families affected by illness. You do not need to be dying to benefit from palliative care, but the need for our services seems to be the greatest for the terminally ill and dying. 

From Bonnie Freeman:

I found in my role as a Nurse Practitioner on a Palliative Care team not only included providing emotional and physical support of patients and families dealing with death and dying, but I also needed to include the medical staff and members of the Palliative Care team. It can be difficult to work with sadness and loss on a daily basis without it taking an emotional toll. 

The need for self-care is a huge focus as many providers deal with emotional fatigue, over-identification, and burn-out. All too often the cure for this emotional strain has been to change jobs, quit, or just stop caring. Far too much time and money are invested in health care providers to have them quit or provide low quality care, so learning to become resilient is essential, and is a major theme for this movie. 

I wrote Resilient Hearts to emphasize the importance of humor and playfulness, and to remind us that it is one of our greatest coping mechanisms. It can provide a means for a patient to retain one’s dignity, regain self-control, and to feel “normal”, even if it is only for a few moments. I do not use humor to make light of the sadness and loss experienced during the dying process, rather I want to show the importance of making personal contact and helping them enjoy the time they have.

Health care providers need to stop equating death with failure, and focus on making the time remaining for our patients a celebration of their life. The dying need to be respected and honored. All too often the terminally ill and dying are isolated and made to feel devalued and untouchable. Resilient Hearts reminds us about the importance of our humanity.

The final journey our terminally ill and dying patients travel can be transformed to a loving and often joyful experience that family members will cherish. Death does not need to be dark and frightening if we can talk about it openly and work to make every moment special. This is what I want to convey in Resilient Hearts. Love and laughter can co-exist with loss and heart-ache.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=814Ean2lpuE

Dr. Bonnie Freeman is a Supportive Care Nurse Practitioner at the City of Hope in Duarte, California. She obtained her Adult Nurse Practitioner education with a secondary focus in Palliative Care from Vanderbilt University, a Doctorate in Nursing Practice from Azusa Pacific University, and she holds an advanced certification in Hospice and Palliative Care Nursing through HPNA.  

Bonnie has received awards for her teaching efforts in Critical Care end of life education from ELNEC in 2009, and for excellence in pain management from the Southern California Cancer Pain Initiative in 2012 and the Margo McCaffery Award of Excellence in 2014. 

Bonnie lost her life in an unexpected medical event prior to the film being completed.

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The Rules of Inheritance, a coming-of-age memoir about grief, was a Books for a Better Life Nominee, a Barnes & Noble Discover pick, has been published in 18 countries, and is currently being adapted for film. After this chronicles Claire’s journey as a grief therapist searching for meaning as she explores various beliefs about the afterlife.

Claire has written for The New York Times, The Huffington Post, Salon.com, Slate, Chicago Public Radio, The Guardian, Psychology Today, Yoga Journal, and BlackBook Magazine.

Claire has a bachelor’s degree from The New School University and a master’s degree from Antioch University. She is a licensed therapist (LCPC) and has a thriving private practice in Los Angeles with offices in both Santa Monica and Beverly Hills. She also works remotely with clients around the globe via Skype and phone.

Since the publication of her books Claire has made many media appearances on both television and radio, gone on to speak and lecture at numerous events, and regularly leads dozens of workshops and retreats on both writing and grief.

Claire is also very involved in the literary community, speaking on panels every year at conferences like AWP, the LA Times Festival of Books, Bindercon and BlogHer. Claire also curates the Los Angeles branch of the popular Happier Hour literary series. She has a vibrant social media life and large community of professional support.

Claire deeply loves her work and seeks to further the conversation about death in order to help our culture reach a healthier understanding of how to move through grief.

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Jake has served as Founder and CEO of several integrative medical clinics and led multiple other healthcare companies. Jake’s companies practiced family medicine, physical medicine, rehabilitation, lifestyle education and psychotherapy, as well as fitness and personal training. Jake has worked with thousands of patients with his physicians and practitioners to develop clinical systems that employed functional medicine concepts which resulted in outcomes successful beyond conventional treatments alone.

His clinics also served as an internship and experiential learning location for medical and pharmacy students as well as an educational center for graduating nurses and family practice medical students.

Jake now serves as the CEO and Chairman of the Clinical Advisory Board of National Integrative Health, where he also authored the organization’s official Health Foundation System. Jake also serves as the Director of Corporate and Family Health at Bearence Management Group out of Minneapolis, MN, Des Moines, IA and Kansas City, MO.

My Prescription Plan isn’t just a company—it’s a story that starts with a member of our team.

In 2009, our co-founder’s father fell ill. Things grew worse, and within a couple years his father was taking over 20 medications per day. His health wasn’t improving, and he felt sluggish all the time. Eager to find a better way, the father and son came across pharmacogenetics, a personalized approach to medications and a hopeful answer. His father was skeptical at first, but he took the test.

The results surprised them both: the test showed that most of the medications were working against, not with his DNA. With some help from his doctor, his father went from taking over 20 medications to six. Not only did his father feel better than he had in a long time, he now had a personalized roadmap to show which medications were effective, which were not, and which were potentially causing future damage. 

They had found answers in one simple test.

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As Melissa began to process her deep grief, she knew that she simply couldn’t fall to pieces. She had two sons to take care of, and they needed her support more than ever. In this inspirational memoir, Melissa details the challenges of transitioning to single motherhood.

Several years earlier, Melissa and her husband had adopted their two sons and left Portland, Oregon, seeking a quieter life. As Melissa began struggling with her bereavement, the isolation of her remote community made things even more difficult. The couple had planned to raise their family in the country, but that was one future that would never come to pass.

Melissa invites you into the toughest time in her life as she struggled to make decisions that would bring her the support she needed and give her sons the stable environment they craved. Her new book, Filled With Gold, was written with the help of Christine Fadden. It will be a welcome read for any parent struggling with bereavement and the challenges of moving forward.

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Dr. Fine is said to have the knowledge of a veteran physician, the wisdom of a philosopher and demeanor of a clinical psychologist except for one additional characteristic; he is a humble man as he treats those most vulnerable within our medical environment.

Dr. Robert Fine has held many roles on state and national medical commissions over the years.  He has helped shaped the way Texans approach end of life conversations and planning.

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Dr. Barile is also Managing Partner and Medical Director with Your Care Plan.

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Dreams foretelling future events, apparitions, and other miraculous experiences fill this book, as practicing doctors recount the most unusual moments of their careers.

Meant to awe, instruct, and inspire, these tales will convince even the harshest skeptic that there are things beyond this physical world and that sometimes, all we need to do is believe.

Physicians’ Untold Stories doesn’t stop at chronicling these occurrences. Scott J. Kolbaba, MD, provides a glimpse into the lives of doctors that few get to experience. Learn their agonies and joys. In their own words, doctors reach out to you and show you how faith in the divine has shaped their lives. Even in the darkest of times, as they comfort terminally ill patients and make impossible choices, moments of light shine through.

Like the popular Chicken Soup for the Soul series, Kolbaba has catalogued inspiration moments into small stories perfect for bite-size reading—or maybe for gobbling up all at once!

Bio

Dr. Kolbaba is an internist in private practice in Wheaton, Illinois. He graduated from the University of Illinois College of Medicine with honors and did his residency at Rush Presbyterian-Saint Lukes Medical Center in Chicago and at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. He has been awarded membership in the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society and has been featured in Chicago magazine as a “Top Doctor” in internal medicine. His friends accuse him of specializing in “big.” Being an only child, he now has a family of seven children. “I wouldn’t give up any of them, at least most of the time!” His other passions include his Newfoundland puppy, already one hundred thirty pounds, and flying kites. Yes, only the big ones. At sixteen square meters, his bright orange and green kite-boarding kite was his favorite until it pulled his neighbor and himself off the ground with a gentle breeze. They both dropped off before they ended up in the clouds. He still doesn’t understand why his neighbor won’t help with his kite hobby anymore. Following the same theme in his garden, Dr. Kolbaba has grown Atlantic Giant pumpkins and is the proud winner of the Sycamore, Illinois, and pumpkin-growing contest two years running. The first time was a surprise, but, the next year, the family invited all their friends to the festivities, which started with the cord cutting in the pumpkin patch by an experienced gynecologist. A caravan of obnoxious horn-blowing cars followed the flat bed truck carrying the precious pumpkin to the contest, where they were pronounced the winner again with a trophy and a cash prize of fifteen dollars. 

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Michelle explains: "It was a personal healing journey. For me, everything that I didn't get to do for my dad I was now doing for all of these other people. So it was really important to me."

Michelle serves as a level 3 RN on her hospice unit, and as a preceptor to nursing students and advisor to newly hired employees. During her 13 years as a Hospice nurse Michelle has received many awards, but her favorite is the UPHS Nursing Excellence Award in reconigtion of Nurse/Patient-Family Relationships (2010).

Michelle makes her home in Philadelphia where she raises two little boys. 

https://www.thenursewiththepurplehair.com

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​She realized that while working as a nurse, she was suffering too. It’s time for change. Yvonne is helping to create this culture of change through her book, her speaking, workshops, social media, radio, television and most recently her “I Just Showed Up” Campaign.

​Yvonne believes when we learn to talk about and plan for grief, something amazing happens; we live more fully and we suffer less at the end of our lives. 

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Following her curiosity and a calling to serve individuals at end of life, Michelle meets patients and families where they are and hopes to shine a light on a very “taboo” subject; Death.  She provides value-based advance care planning, assistance with patient literacy and advocacy, she provides non-medical support, including experienced or expecting pregnancy loss, and is opening new ways to think about burials, by thinking GREEN. 

Her supporting presence is molded into what patients and families need.  She has become a bridge for her clients by providing and connecting them to community resources, by giving them permission to ask the hard questions, validating the uncertainty of the dying process and being a comforting presence.   

Michelle has become a student of life by allowing dying individuals to teach her about what matters most. Her motto is, “Life Matters.  Talk About Death”

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When Eduardo arrived at Salt Lake City’s Burn Trauma ICU, doctors said he was a dead man with a heartbeat. During the course of his recovery, Eduardo spent 48 days in the ICU. He had nine severe exit wounds and underwent 21 surgeries, which included the removal of four ribs and cutting away destroyed muscle mass from his torso, legs, arms and scalp. Doctors tried to save Eduardo’s left hand, but, when it came down to life or limb, they had to amputate the chef's hand and forearm.

While in the ICU, fighting for a heartbeat, Eduardo was dealt another shock: He had stage 2 testicular cancer. Pending surgeries were put on hold and he returned to Montana to begin aggressive chemotherapy. After months of chemotherapy treatment, he returned to Salt Lake City to complete his surgeries.

Months before the incident, Eduardo’s long-term girlfriend, Jennifer Jane, left him after Eduardo had proven himself unfaithful. Still struggling with the knowledge that Eduardo was not the man she thought he was, Jen flew from England to be by his side. As his primary caregiver throughout it all and by his side 24 hours a day in the ICU, Jen documented the initial months with her camera and supported him through his recovery as those months turned into years.

Since his hospital release, Eduardo has become an athlete and speaker for the Challenged Athletes Foundation, mastered the use of his prosthetic hook in the kitchen and is back to exploring the great outdoors. As inspiring as his physical recovery is, it is just a small part of the transformation ignited by his traumatic injuries.

Charged is a survival story built on the foundations of love and forgiveness. But it is about more than just surviving. It is about building stronger relationships and a better life after tragedy. It is about finding your best self so you can live life fully Charged.

Jennifer Jane is Eduardo’s closest friend and has been his primary caregiver throughout his ordeal. During Eduardo’s immense recovery she kept the camera rolling, generating a library of unique footage. She will provide the inner perspective of his recuperation and comeback, ensuring that the documentary is accurate and includes the most insightful moments of his incredible journey to get his life back. Originally from Dorset, England Jennifer moved to Montana after meeting Eduardo. She is the co-founder and CMO of Montana Mex food brand as well as the writer and executive producer of 'A Hungry Life', an outdoor cooking series being produced for YETI Coolers. Jennifer is a writer, designer, holds a degree in Psychology, enjoys dancing, board sports and performs stand-up comedy. Learn more about Jen at jennyofthejane.com

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I met Eduardo and Jen five years ago when I worked with them on a trailer for their TV show called Active Ingredient. I could see right away that Eduardo had a huge passion for life, cooking and the outdoors. I shared his belief in living a healthy lifestyle and knew I had made a lifelong friend with whom I could explore Montana’s wilderness. The show was just about to sell when we got the bad news of Eduardo’s injury. During his time in the hospital, Jen took it upon herself to film his recovery with the idea to someday make a documentary. When Eduardo made it back to Montana, I started to follow him with my camera as he went through chemotherapy and began his journey to get back into his life through fly-fishing, hiking, hunting and cooking. It was incredible to see him tackle all of his obstacles while keeping a positive attitude. Eduardo is reaching the stage in his life where he wants to give back, say thanks and use his tragedy to help others. I want to be there to film this journey and to see the effect he will have on everyone around him. His story is something worth sharing and will make a difference in people’s lives no matter what kind of struggles they are having. 

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Phillip earned a degree in Media and Theatre Arts from Montana State University.  Following his passion for film, storytelling and adventure, he went to work in television and documentary filmmaking.  His most credited broadcast series are Destination Extreme on National Geographic (field producer / DP /editor), AX Men on the History Channel (DP) and Mountain Men on the History Channel (camera operator).  In 2008, Phillip founded Implement Productions, based in Bozeman, MT. Phillip recently his first feature length documentary, Unbranded (director).  Unbranded won the 2015 Audience Choice Award at both Hot Docs in Toronto, ON and Telluride Mountain Film Festival in CO.

Charged is a survival story built on the foundations of love and forgiveness. But it is about more than just surviving. It is about building stronger relationships and a better life after tragedy. It is about finding your best self so you can live life fully Charged. 

Charged with 2400 volts of electricity, Eduardo lost an arm, ribs, muscle mass, and nearly his life, but more important than what he lost is what he found.

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By all accounts I should not be alive and sitting at my desk writing this today! Having my health and the clarity of mind to write these words and pursue my dreams fills me with such gratitude. As with most things in life, what happens on the outside is only a fraction of the complete picture, 90 percent of my story is about what lies beneath the surface. Reflecting back almost four years since that day in the woods, it is unmistakably clear that the pain and trauma I felt was not an event exclusive to me, but rather something that my family, friends, community and medical team also experienced. When I was wracked with pain so were they. As I struggled to survive, they were struggling right there with me.

The person I am today is not the result of one, two or three people’s efforts, but countless people all joining together to work as one supportive unit to help me rebuild my life. This documentary is about telling that 90 percent. It’s about giving credit to the team that is required to make it through a traumatic event, and the steps I made personally to be the strongest team player I could. My intention with this film is to give back. I have been given so much help, by so many. How can I repay that help? How can I say thank you? There are so many underlying layers to trauma, recovery, relationships and caring for others. I want to dig deep into my own bizarre experience and share the raw details of what survival and true recovery really look like. Through this intimate look at my own story I hope to help others recognize that we all have our mountains to climb, and to ignite within them the courage and commitment it takes to look honestly at ourselves and tackle our own challenges by the horns.

Many people do not manage to get back up after a traumatic injury. This is because it sucks and because it’s hard! A smile is one of the most powerful ways to say, “Yes, I will try. I can do this!” If this documentary brightens at least one face with a smile and sets off that spark of energy needed to embrace one’s own experience and start living life fully charged, then I will have succeeded in my mission to help others.

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Now, the You’re Going to Die movement is a deeper & more varied exploration of death & dying, one driven by creativity, fueled by arts & entertainment, writing & music, interviews & stories, but always with the continued commitment to bring people creatively into the conversation of death & dying, while helping to inspire & empower out of an unabashed embrace of our losses & mortality…

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Cathy subsequently directed and produced a short, humorous, personal film called Lost Love (1982). In 1986, she produced a 90-minute documentary about the Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament, a nine-month cross-country journey of roughly 500 dedicated souls. The film, Just One Step: The Great Peace March, led to her making a film of the first Soviet-American Peace March, marriage to the talented cameraman Edis Jurcys, and raising a family together. Along the way, she became a cranio-sacral biodynamic healer.

In the early 2000s, Cathy co-created Holy Rascals, a project that generated short videos about the perennial wisdom of spiritual elders and the cutting-edge teachings of emerging paradigms of independent spirituality (transcending theology and religion).

Cathy’s most recent project, Living While Dying, sheds light on end of life.  Through experiences with a deathwalker, friends and her mother, they share their opinions on living knowing death will come to us all, but knowing that we are living while dying.

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It was during and after these vigils visits, Pam hand wrote about her experiences.  She wrote each poem in private journals, describing it as “my safe place for processing; my haven for unfiltered, unedited writing.”  Her book of poems will touch a part of your heart, and inspire you to live boldly, love unconditionally and embrace those living while dying.  Pam’s poems are a must read for those working with the dying.

Andrew Macpherson serves as Principal at Healthsperien, LLC, a Washington, DC-based health policy consulting firm and as Senior Policy Adviser to several national end-of-life care organizations, including the National Partnership for Hospice Innovation and the Coalition to Transform Advanced Care (C-TAC).

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PERSONIFY HEALTH HOPES TO HUMANIZE, RESTORE CULTURE OF “HEADS-UP” HEALTHCARE

Wilmington-based healthcare brand and message company employs proven healthcare communications strategies to change face of patient-provider relationship.

Today’s patients want to be heard, understood and feel genuinely cared for. But they’re not, according to one study that finds more than 80% of consumers are unsatisfied with their healthcare experience. From time-spent-with-patient to medical billing issues, today’s doctor’s office or hospital visits seem less refuges of healing and more lairs of liability.

Personify Health, recently launched under the Bon’s Eye Marketing banner, envisions a “heads-up” culture of healthcare by working with regional and national practices to bridge the gap in patient-provider communications and improve the patient experience.

So what’s changed since the days of house calls, when the patient-provider relationship was as much about communication, trust and transparency as it was a prescription?

With the advent of technologies like the internet, healthcare has transformed at the speed of light. Unfortunately, most patients have not, leaving many feeling increasingly alienated by a culture of “heads-down” healthcare. In short, healthcare no longer feels human.

The Story

Using carefully scripted narratives and cinematic video techniques, Personify Health humanizes healthcare providers by featuring them beyond the white coat in various activities that personify their true nature. From these one-to-two minute videos, current and prospective patients learn about their providers, their compatibility with them, and their philosophy of care. Personify Health also uses a wide variety of other more traditional healthcare communications tools to bridge the patient-provider gap and optimize patient experience.

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Ashton is the founder of two popular blogs: ThisChairRocks.com and Yo,IsThisAgeist.com

Ashton is an internationally reknown speaker on the subject of ageism. I highly recommend that you watch her T.E.D. talk Let’s End Ageism.

Her book This Chair Rocks: A manifesto on ageism is rated 5 stars on Amazon!

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It was no different for us when Michelle’s father, Ted, passed away in 2013. Ted’s death was unexpected, and while our family was dealing with our sudden loss we were doing our best to make funeral and burial arrangements that we hoped would be pleasing to him. We didn’t know what Ted’s final wishes were.

As it turned out, that was only the beginning of our struggles. Soon after the final arrangements were made and Ted was laid to rest, we began the task of sorting through his finances. Michelle’s father was a private man. He handled all of the household finances and hadn’t really shared any information with his wife or the family.

It took us nearly 10 months of digging through boxes and files and making exhaustive phone calls to locate all of the bank accounts, insurance policies, safe deposits, retirement and pension accounts, online accounts, and more. When we spoke with others about our situation, we found we were not alone.

That’s when My Life and Wishes was born. We felt that there had to be a better way. Survivors shouldn’t have to go through this kind of stress, when the hardship and sadness of the loss alone are enough. My Life and Wishes was created to be an easy-to-use platform that allows users to record all the information their loved ones will need at the time of loss.

It’s our hope that My Life & Wishes will protect your family and give you peace of mind that the details of your affairs are safe, organized, and easily accessible to your loved ones.

https://www.mylifeandwishes.com

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Belisomo holds a doctorate from Loyola University-Chicago in bioethics and health policy, as well as an M.S.J. from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Notre Dame. She is a multiple Emmy Nominee and a Peter Lisagor Award winner for best in-depth series, best feature and best sports story.

She currently serves on the boards of Living Water International and Mental Health America- Illinois. She is a chair person of the Carlos Hernandez Award in Meritorious Journalism at DePaul University and a member of the Illinois Task Force for the Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment (POLST). She is a Respecting Choices certified advance care planning facilitator and instructor.

Having served as a caregiver and widowed at a young age, Belisomo knows that end of life issues impact everyone at some point. She hopes that through the work of Life Matters Media, the inevitable challenges with which life presents and often surprises us will be made easier for the organization’s audiences.

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No reporter skills, however, could uncover her mother’s voice in order to talk deeply and specifically about her desires and wishes when she was facing her end her life. Like the majority of us, Ellen struggled and questioned the decisions she was making on her mother’s behalf.  “Have I made the right decisions for my mother?” she asked herself.  Ellen never wanted her family or friends to feel that same burden. Ellen realized after her mother’s death how much easier it would have been if she could have heard her mother’s voice guiding her throughout all the difficult discussions. Ellen knew she had missed the opportunity to have a conversation.

 “The Conversation Project” was created in 2010 when Ellen and a group of colleagues, concerned members of  the media, clergymen, and medical professionals came together to share stories of “good deaths” and “bad deaths.”  In 2011, The Conversation Project began a partnership with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) in order to create momentum and awareness for their “Conversation” initiative. 

Today, “The Conversation Project” includes a team of seasoned law and media professionals along with a group of journalists who are working pro bono alongside IHI staff members to bring a wealth of expertise to the project.

“I realized only after my mother’s death how much easier it would have all been if I heard her voice in my ear as these decisions had to be made.”  ―Ellen Goodman

http://theconversationproject.org/

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He lives in Richmond, Va. (My hometown) with his wife and 2 young children.

And last but not least, Nathan is the founder and creator of National Healthcare Decisions Day.  It’s a grassroots movement to get everyone talking about their own death by encouraging individuals to fill out the documents that support wishes at the end of life.  Every year on April 16th, Nathan and thousands of others nationwide take to the streets to bring awareness to Advance Directives.

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Dr. Sudore is a geriatrician, palliative medicine physician, and advance care planning researcher. She also directs the Innovation & Implementation Center in Aging & Palliative Care (I-CAP) and the Vulnerable Populations for Aging Research Core of the NIA-funded Pepper Center.

Dr. Sudore is passionate about making medical information easier to understand and helping people make informed medical decisions.

Dr. Sudore has dedicated her research program to making medical information easier for patients and their families to understand. She published the first prospective study demonstrating the effect of limited literacy on mortality in the elderly, and has shown that elders with limited literacy have greater difficulty making medical decisions for informed consent and advance care planning. She has also designed and tested an informed consent process for patients with limited literacy and an advance directive that is both literacy and culturally appropriate. Both interventions have been shown to benefit patients - particularly those with literacy and/or language barriers. Even though her low-literate advance directive has been translated and widely disseminated, further research with patients and surrogate decision makers helped her realize that advance directives alone are not enough. In 2010, she published a study in the Annals of Internal Medicine calling for a shift in advance care planning from DNR/DNI checklists to preparing patients and their loved ones for medical decision making. Her current research program is focused on designing and testing interactive, web-based interventions to prepare patients and their surrogate decision makers to make difficult medical decisions.

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Stephanie’s messages are always of the highest vibration as she only tunes into the highest level of loving energy and guidance. She is able to channel love and healing to those who are in pain and/or experiencing loss as well as offer spiritual coaching/guidance to those who are interested in making changes in their lives. Stephanie’s Guides are humorous and full of light so her sessions generally involve much laughter and evoke positive feelings. She cares deeply for every client and most of her clients are regular repeat customers.

Stephanie helps people find clarity in their lives by providing insight through her channeling and coaching gifts. She believes we all have the innate ability to channel and connect to our Higher Selves and our divine nature. Stephanie feels it is her role to support her clients in finding their inner voice and trusting their inner wisdom.

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The late-20th century idea of managing health, death and dying through personalised care buckles under the weight of necessary interaction with various health and care systems formed from 19th century models of care, such as the charitable community hospice or the disease-focused hospital. These institutions served us well when being in the community meant we would receive much poorer care, or lower our chances of survival when we were ill, but this has changed. As Allan Kellehear has pointed out, people spend only 5% of their time at the end of life with healthcare professionals. With more people dying in care homes, the number is set to double to around 40% in 20 years time. This shift means that home carers will need to deliver nearly 70 hours of care per week in the last three months of life.

In order to meaningfully transform our relationship with death and dying – to make it more human-centred, socially-connected and interconnected – we need to take a more relational approach to end of life that encompasses the wider, non-medical ecosystems of care. In other words, we need to take a systemic approach to end of life care.

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Wanting to further support individuals and families facing crisis and complex illness, Elizabeth started working in General Internal Medicine at the Toronto Western Hospital in 1999. Inspired by the emotional aspects of caring, in 2000, she joined the Psychosocial Oncology Program at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto where she supported individuals and

families following diagnosis, through to end-of-life.

In 2002, Elizabeth was privileged to become the Mirst Palliative Social Worker at the largest cancer treatment centre in Canada, and was proud to be part of the interprofessional team on the Acute Palliative Care Unit from its inception.

As the designated Palliative Social Worker at the Cancer Centre, she specialized in

therapeutic interventions with individuals and families on the Acute Palliative Care Unit and in the Outpatient Palliative Clinics as they faced complex illness, uncertainty and grief.

Grateful for the experiences of working in Acute Palliative Care, but wanting to broaden access to Palliative Care in the community, Elizabeth launched her private practice in 2015, offering psychosocial support to individuals and families of all ages facing complex illness, dying, grief and bereavement.

An experienced educator, Elizabeth highlights the value of compassion and communication in the context of coping with complex illness, grief and loss. She teaches courses and workshops to the general public, health science learners and healthcare professionals and collaborates on numerous local, regional, provincial and national Hospice Palliative Care initiatives. She has examined access to care and quality of life with Mindings published in peer-reviewed journals. Elizabeth is an Assistant Clinical Professor (Adjunct) with the Department of Family Medicine, Division of Palliative Care, Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster University.

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Torrie also has a moving personal story that has inspired her passion for palliative care. 

Her personal story will touch your heart, empower your spirit and inspire you to live boldly every moment of every day.

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As a partner in the firm of Gallagher, Evelius & Jones in Baltimore, Edo previously served as deputy director of the Medicare-Medicaid coordination Office at the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and associate general counsel at the Visiting Nurse Service of New York.  Edo holds a B.A. from Binghamton University and a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.  Prior to attending law school Edo worked for the New York City Department of Homeless Services and Mayor’s Office of Operations.

“With the aging of the Baby-Boomers, our nation is experiencing an increase in the need for hospice and palliative care services.” Edo states. “What began 50 years ago as a grassroots movement to better care for the dying is now an integral part of the U.S. health care landscape and the expansion of community –based palliative care services provides further opportunities to ensure we are providing the best possible care for those facing serious and life-limiting illness.”

National Hospice & Palliative Care Organization is the oldest and largest membership association working on behalf of hospice and palliative care providers and professionals in the U.S.

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Death.  It happens to everyone, yet most of us don’t want to talk about our final chapter of existence Caleb Wilde intimately understands this reticence and fear.  The son of an undertaker, he hesitated to embrace the legacy of running his family business.  Yet he discovered that caring for the deceased and their loved ones profoundly changed his faith and his perspective on death – and life itself. “Yes, death can be bad.  Yes, death can be negative,” Wilde acknowledges, “but it can also be beautiful.  And that alternate narrative needs to be discussed.”  Wilde engages in a thoughtful and poignant conversation to push against the death negative narrative and to help us see the end of life in a positive and liberating way.

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Dr. Acquaviva has a Ph.D. in Human Sexuality Education from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, an M.S.W. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice, and a B.A. in Sociology from the University of Pennsylvania College of Arts and Sciences. She is an AASECT-Certified Sexuality Educator. 

Kimberly D. Acquaviva, PhD, MSW, CSE, is both Founding Faculty at GW Nursing and the first non-nurse to receive tenure at the school. As a social worker teaching within the school, Dr. Acquaviva’s research and scholarship are interdisciplinary and collaborative. 

Dr. Acquaviva is nationally known as an innovator and authority on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and/or questioning (LGBTQ) aging and end-of-life issues. She is the former Co-Chair of the American Society on Aging’s LGBT Aging Issues Network (LAIN) and she served as one of four LGBT aging researchers responsible for overseeing the development, implementation and analysis of Still Out, Still Aging: The MetLife Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Baby Boomers, a national survey of 1200 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender baby boomers and 1,200 of their heterosexual counterparts. Dr. Acquaviva developed the content, script and storyboards for “Aging and End-of-Life Issues in the LGBT Community” for the Hospice Foundation of America’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)-funded online course as part of a national education/outreach initiative on hospice care. She serves on the editorial boards of several refereed journals including Sexuality Research and Social Policy, Journal of Gay and Lesbian Social Services, and Journal of Ethnographic & Qualitative Research. Her book, LGBTQ-Inclusive Hospice and Palliative Care: A Practical Guide to Transforming Professional Practice, was published by Harrington Park Press and distributed by Columbia University Press in April 2017. Learn more about the book.

In addition to her work in the field of LGBT aging, Dr. Acquaviva is a leader and innovator in the development of technology-facilitated educational innovations for health care providers, serving as both lead author and co-investigator of The National Emergency Medical Services Preparedness Initiative, a $4.7 million federally-funded training and policy initiative, as well as project manager for The National Nurse Emergency Preparedness Initiative (NNEPI), a $2 million federally funded web-based training initiative designed to increase nurses’ awareness of strategies for preparing for, responding to and recovering from emergencies and disasters. More than 28,000 nurses have completed the NNEPI online course to date.

Dr. Acquaviva's policy and advocacy work at the Federal level had made tangible advances in funding for aging research. Dr. Acquaviva recently completed a term as Special Government Employee (SGE) on the National Advisory Council on Aging (NACA), advising the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Director of the National Institutes of Health, and the Director of the National Institute on Aging on its mission. Prior to her appointment to the NACA, Dr. Acquaviva completed a two-year term as Chair of the Friends of the National Institute on Aging, a broad-based coalition of almost 50 aging, disease, research, and patient groups supporting the mission of the National Institute on Aging. In her capacity as Chair, Dr. Acquaviva led the coalition in efforts to advocate on behalf of the NIA through the annual congressional budget and appropriations process and promote NIA research activities by sponsoring briefings for congressional staff. Regarding this work, President and CEO of the Alliance for Aging Research Sue Peschin writes that Dr. Acquaviva "is a politically astute advocate for aging research, and led the way to an increase in funding in the President's budget for Alzheimer's research at the NIH by $130 million, by systematically enlisting support from the White House, NIH, and Congress." The founder of the Alliance for Aging Research, Dan Perry, writes that Dr. Acquaviva "performed superbly... advocating for the science-based agency before Members of Congress and staff, media, and other key stakeholders" and "is recognized by her peers as a leader in the science and public policy realms of medical and social gerontology."

Kimberly is a professor at the University of Virginia in the Nursing Department.

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In April 2013, Steve and Hope Dezember reached out to Michael and asked that Steve’s wish to attend Michael Franti & Spearhead’s concert be granted. Steve is living with advanced stages of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). During the show, Michael invited the couple to join him and the band onstage. Although Steve was barely able to move his body, he asked Hope to lift him out of his wheelchair. Wrapped in each other’s arms, they danced on stage in front of 20,000 fellow music fans. There was not a dry eye in the house.

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Michael and Sara had been looking for a project to work on together. That night, they decided they would continue to give the gift of live music to inspire joy, connectedness and a positive, potentially life-changing experience to as many people in need as possible. Michael came very close to dying when his appendix ruptured on tour. Sara works as an E.R. nurse. Their experiences, and the Dezembers’ story, led to the creation of Do It For The Love. Their hope is to bring thousands of people in need, to experience the healing power of music. 

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Dr. Arnup has felt loss and its impact first-hand. Despite a profound fear of death, she became her sister’s caregiver, confidante, and advocate when she was dying of cancer at the age of 51. The experience was life-changing – Katherine recognized the importance of being present and showing up for the more challenging experiences of life. The loss of her sister led to hospice training and volunteering each week for more than a decade at a residential hospice.  She is a passionate advocate for providing dignified and caring support for dying people and their families.

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“We are breathless, but we love the days. They are promises. They are the only way to walk from one night to the other.”

Nina Riggs was just thirty-seven years old when initially diagnosed with breast cancer—one small spot. Within a year, the mother of two sons, ages seven and nine, and married sixteen years to her best friend, received the devastating news that her cancer was terminal.

How does one live each day, “unattached to outcome”? How does one approach the moments, big and small, with both love and honesty?

Exploring motherhood, marriage, friendship, and memory, even as she wrestles with the legacy of her great-great-great grandfather, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nina Riggs’s breathtaking memoir continues the urgent conversation that Paul Kalanithi began in his gorgeous When Breath Becomes Air. She asks, what makes a meaningful life when one has limited time?

Brilliantly written, disarmingly funny, and deeply moving, The Bright Hour is about how to love all the days, even the bad ones, and it’s about the way literature, especially Emerson, and Nina’s other muse, Montaigne, can be a balm and a form of prayer. It’s a book about looking death squarely in the face and saying “this is what will be.”

Especially poignant in these uncertain times, The Bright Hour urges us to live well and not lose sight of what makes us human: love, art, music, words.

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And so Miss Norma took off on an unforgettable around-the-country journey in a thirty-six-foot motor home with her retired son Tim, his wife Ramie, and their dog Ringo. 

As this once timid woman says “yes” to living in the face of death, she tries regional foods for the first time, reaches for the clouds in a hot air balloon, and mounts up for a horseback ride. With each passing mile (and one educational visit to a cannabis dispensary), Miss Norma’s health improves and conversations that had once been taboo begin to unfold. Norma, Tim, and Ramie bond in ways they had never done before, and their definitions of home, family, and friendship expand. Stop by stop, state by state, they meet countless people from all walks of life—strangers who become fast friends and welcome them with kindness and open hearts.

Infused with this irrepressible nonagenarian’s wisdom, courage, and generous spirit, Driving Miss Norma is the charming, infectiously joyous chronicle of their experiences on the road. It portrays a transformative journey of living life on your own terms that shows us that it is never too late to begin an adventure, inspire hope, or become a trailblazer.

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As founder of the Ungerleider Palliative Care Education Fund, she is supporting big ideas that further palliative care education at every level.  In collaboration with the California Pacific Medical Center Foundation, the Ungerleider Fund created a well-rounded education program to enhance awareness and training around advanced illness and end of life care. The program also encourages physician communication and wellness for healthcare providers. 

Not stopping there, she funded Extremis, a short documentary about end of life decision-making in an intensive care unit featured on Netflix and directed by Academy Award nominee, Dan Krauss.  In addition, Dr. Ungerleider co-sponsored the OpenIDEO design challenge to re-image end of life and “Death Over Dinner:  Healthcare Edition.“ 

Dr. Ungerleider is the founding chair of the End Well Project, a conference that will address issues as a multidisciplinary community, bringing together design, technology, health, policy along with activists’ imaginations and expertise.  This conference will be held in San Francisco on December 7thwith an all- star-line-up of speakers and innovative thinkers collaborating to enhance the dying experience for the patient and the provider.

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Dr. Dawn Gross is uniquely qualified to lead a cultural revolution on end of life care. She holds combined degrees from Tufts University School of Medicine and the Sackler School of Biomedical Sciences, where she was trained rigorously as both a physician and scientist. 

Beginning her practice as a hospice team physician, Dawn was invited to attend on the palliative care team at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She was subsequently recruited away to become the Arthur M. Coppola family chair for the Department of Supportive Care Medicine and clinical professor of hospice and palliative medicine at the City of Hope National Medical Center. Dawn wanted to be a scientist.  She loved the science behind medicine and thought she would never aspire to become a practicing clinician.  Yet, when her father was facing a serious illness, Dawn chose not continue on the scientific path she loved.  That’s when she sat still long enough and allowed life to find her―and began to bake.

Dawn didn’t just bake anything. She baked a batch of cookies from her grandmother’s old recipe books.  “Watching my dad eat the cookie from his childhood, he was transported to a place of pure happiness and joy,” she recalls. “This made me realize how important the small things in life truly are at the end of life.”  

Upon her father’s admittance to hospice, dying only four days later, her grief took over.  

Throughout her medical training, Dawn was taught to separate her emotion, putting boundaries between her own self and the patients she served.  As a hospice medical director, she knew one thing.  She did not want to be a physician that chose not to relate with her patients facing end of life.  She found that she simply could not take her heart out of her practice.

Dawn returned to UCSF to join the newly formed palliative care committee within the San Francisco Department of Aging and Adult Services.  In addition, she was invited to host a ground-breaking live, call-in radio program, Dying to Talk, broadcast on the oldest FM station west of the Mississippi, KALW 91.7 FM. 

Her experiences as a hospice and palliative care physician have given her an unequaled perspective on how to care for people in their own homes. Whether attending patients in trailer parks or penthouses, there is no ivory tower. Dawn’s personal encounters as a mother and as a witness to her father’s death and her mother’s simultaneous serious illness inspired her to write and speak extensively about the work she does today. 

Her writings have been published in a variety of medical journals, including:  Science, JAMA, Annals of Internal Medicineand San Francisco Medicine. A recent piece, "The Error in 'There's Nothing More To Do,'" was featured in the “Opinionator” blog of the New York Times. Her recent work to develop a curriculum offering a "death-ed" class at Head Royce School in Oakland, CA, was also published in the New York Times.

Dawn’s written words based upon her distinguished medical career have one mission: to show us how we can live fully until we die. She is determined, both through her writings and by example, to improve how the medical community and medical protocol communicate with people about their potential dire prognoses.

Her undertaking is to assist patients and their families in dealing with the inevitable outcome of a life-ending health crisis with honesty and dignity. In the end, public policy must acknowledge and question incentives that prolong life with no appreciation for the impact on how we die. The public is just beginning to accept this dialogue and there is much more to be said.

http://www.drasyouwish.com/

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After Paul died in 2015, Lucy completed his memoir and wrote its powerful epilogue. As her husband’s caregiver during all phases of his illness and as a practicing physician, she has interests in the value of healthcare in relation to medicine, patient-centered care and end of life care. She is dedicated to helping others make personal choices that best align with their own values at end of life. 

Lucy has gained national media attention and has appeared on NPR, PBS Newshour, Yahoo News with Katie Couric, and Charlie Rose on CBS. She has also been featured in The New York Times and Elle magazine. She currently lives in the San Francisco Bay area with the couple’s daughter, Elizabeth Acadia (Cady). 

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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.

http://jessicazitter.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJiY8duVgz0

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In my opinion, BJ Miller is the epitome of a 21st century Sherpa.  When your personal experiences opens a doorway to relate to those facing end of life, your practice is not a practice, it is a calling.

As a Princeton student, BJ’s life dramatically changed when he endured a tragic accident. Climbing on top of a parked Dinky Line shuttle train in New Jersey, 11,000 volts of electricity violently came through a power line and connected with the watch he was wearing on his left wrist.

As the high voltage ran through BJ’s body, he was badly burned and nearly dead. The young BJ Miller died that night, but medics were able to resuscitate him.  As he recovered over the next several months, he was faced with accepting and coping with the loss of both legs below the knee and his left forearm.

Bravely undergoing multiple surgeries, BJ almost gave up on his medical career aspirations. But a fellowship in palliative care was introduced to him from the state of Wisconsin, and there was an immediate connection.

BJ knew he had found his calling. He was able to share a viewpoint rarely brought into the palliative care setting.  He had experienced personal pain and loss and had escaped his own death.  He knew what suffering meant. He knew he wanted to make a difference. He wanted to change how individuals thought about death and dying. And now he is doing just that.

As the executive director of the Zen Hospice Project, BJ Miller has established a compassionate and pioneering service that initially grew from the San Francisco AIDS crisis in 1987 that created one of the city’s first residential hospices. Zen Hospice Project continues to be recognized as an innovative leader providing care for those facing advanced illness and support to their loved ones, while also educating and supporting an ever-growing community of caregivers.

The Zen Hospice Project is not like other hospices.  They do not take any reimbursements for caring for the dying at end of life.  The majority of hospice organizations rely heavily on compensation through Medicare, but that is not the case with the Zen Hospice Project.  They choose to do things differently and rely totally on donations from the community to support their mission without limiting care based only upon Medicare reimbursements.

http://www.zenhospice.org/

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Michelle is co-founder of One Fit Widow and My1FitLife. She recently launched Live the List, which focuses on helping widows and widowers complete bucket list dreams to honor their late spouse while moving boldly into their future.  Michelle’s overarching goal is to help people live a full, fit and intentional life beyond life’s hardest moments.

Michelle’s new book Healthy Healing, a guide to working out grief using the power of exercise and endorphins, published by Harper One, is now available.

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At a time of great demographic and cultural change in our society, Dr. Fratkin has created ResoultionCare to insure high quality, innovative and soulful care of everyone, everywhere as they approach end of life.

ResolutionCare leverages partnerships with existing healthcare providers and payers to provide telehealth applications that enhance greater quality of living, which provides a grater quality of dying.  This revolutionary approach to delivering Palliative Care to all communities is built around patient inclusion with a highly qualified Palliative Care Team. ResolutionCare’s team openly shares expertise and mentors individuals so they can receive the care they need where they live and, most importantly, on their own terms.

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He has given over 100 talks nationally, and internationally, on the topics of death, dying, palliative care and the intersection of healthcare with design. His 2015 TED Talk: “Not Whether But How” (aka “What Matters Most at the End of Life”), has been viewed over 11 million times

been the subject of multiple interviews and podcasts, including Oprah Winfrey, PBS, The New York Times, The California Sunday Magazine, GOOP, Krista Tippett, Tim Ferriss and the TED Radio Hour.

Recently, BJ founded Mettle Health.

Mettle Health provides personalized, holistic consultations for any patient or caregiver who needs help navigating the practical, emotional and existential issues that come with serious illness and disability. We are the first patient- and caregiver-centric palliative care delivery system accessible to everyone, irrespective of geography, without a doctor’s referral. Mettle Health is comprised of

palliative care clinicians, but operates outside of the traditional medical system; making it a social service staffed by medical professionals. Patients and caregivers dealing with serious or chronic illness should be able to count on sound

information and enough emotional support to feel confident in the choices they make, whatever

their circumstances; Mettle Health will make that possible.

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