Tag: death education

EOLPodcast

Ep. 415 End-of-Life Care for Children and Their Families with Toula Saratsis

kwyattmd

Learn how a grieving mother has been called to offer palliative, end-of-life, and after death care to children and their families.

My guest Toula Saratsis is a certified end-of-life doula who specializes in prenatal and pediatric palliative, end-of-life, and after death care support. She shares her poignant story of being called to this work after the death of her daughter Angelica from a life limiting condition. Toula’s work and wisdom are remarkable in a field of care that many find too painful and heartbreaking to pursue. She shows us that grief is a powerful transformer and creator of good in the world. Connect with Toula:

toulasaratsis@gmail.com Facebook:  Toula Saratsis Instagram:  @toula_saratsis

Watch on YouTube

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This episode includes:

  • Toula and Angelica’s story
  • How Toula managed to cope with devastating loss and grief
  • Why Toula felt well-suited to provide palliative and end-of-life care to children after facing death on a daily basis
  • How to inspire more end-of-life care providers to work with children even through their discomfort
  • How Toula advocates for patients and families within the healthcare system
  • The need for palliative and end-of-life care for perinatal death
  • How to talk to a child with a life-limiting condition about death
  • The importance of a home funeral after a child dies
  • Self-care while doing this work

Links mentioned in this episode:

If you enjoy this content please share it with others and consider leaving a review on iTunes. Thanks again to all supporters on my page at Patreon.com/eolu, especially my newest donor Nadili, thanks to Kim Adams for upping your pledge, Kristin Kennell for your Paypal donation, and to Kathleen Vallee Stein for buying me 10 coffees! Your contributions make all the difference and ensure this podcast stays ad-free.

EOLPodcast

Ep. 409 The Death Doula’s Guide to Living Fully and Dying Prepared with Francesca Lynn Arnoldy

kwyattmd

Learn about a brilliant workbook that helps us expand death literacy while exploring life’s deeper meaning.

My guest Francesca Lynn Arnoldy is a doula and a researcher with the Vermont Conversation Lab. She was the original developer of the end-of-life doula training programs at the University of Vermont and is the author of three “death-lit” books. In this conversation we’ll discuss her latest workbook The Death Doula’s Guide to Living Fully and Dying Prepared. Learn more at her websites:

www.francescalynnarnoldy.com

www.contemplativedoula.com

Get the workbook here

Watch on YouTube

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This episode includes:

  • Reminder about Francesca’s previous book Map of Memory Lane and how it helps children learn about grief
  • Francesca’s main inspiration for creating this workbook
  • The value of keeping a “Death Journal”
  • How to use The Death Doula’s Guide as a death journal
  • The importance of acquiring both intellectual knowledge and inner wisdom
  • A heart-centering practice for death workers is a valuable tool
  • What death wellness means and how one can achieve it
  • The difference between sympathy, empathy, and compassion
  • How to do a life review

Links mentioned in this episode:

If you enjoy this content please share it with others and consider leaving a review on iTunes. Thanks again to all supporters on my page at Patreon.com/eolu and to Robin Miniter for buying me 3 coffees! Your contributions make all the difference and ensure this podcast stays ad-free.

EOLPodcast

Ep. 400 The Value of Death: The Lancet Commission Report with Dr. Libby Sallnow

kwyattmd

Learn about the important recent report from the Lancet Commission in the UK on the value of death and what each of us needs to do to help bring death back into life.

My guest Dr. Libby Sallnow is a palliative medicine consultant and honorary senior lecturer at St. Christopher’s Hospice and the UCL Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Department, UK. She is also the co-author of The Lancet Commission Report on the Value of Death: Bringing Death Back Into Life. In addition her PhD explored the translation of a model of compassionate communities from Kerala, India to London, UK. She discusses the creation of the report on The Value of Death and its key takeaways that can form a roadmap for the reform and rebalancing of death and dying in our societies. Learn more about her work at the website:

www.ucl.ac.uk/health-of-public/news-and-events/spotlight/spotlight-dr-libby-sallnow

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This episode includes:

  • What inspired Libby’s interest in end-of-life care
  • The Lancet Commission on the Value of Death and what lead to their recent report
  • Why we need to rebalance death and dying
  • The “5 principles of a realistic utopia” as described in the report
  • Why we need to focus on death literacy first as we try to improve end-of-life care in our societies
  • The compassionate communities approach (to be covered in a future episode)

Links mentioned in this episode:

If you enjoy this content please share it with others and consider leaving a review on iTunes. Thanks again to all supporters on my page at Patreon.com/eolu, especially my latest patrons Jeff Black and Lindsay Compton, and to Brittany Ellis for your donation on Paypal! Your contributions make all the difference.

EOLPodcast

Ep. 397 Talking About Death with ChatGPT

kwyattmd

Learn how the AI language model ChatGPT can be used as a resource for information about death and dying and when caution is required.

My special “guest” this week is ChatGPT an AI language model that can understand and respond to human language. Chat has been trained on a wide range of topics, including end-of-life care, hospice, palliative care, grief and bereavement, and advance care planning, among others. I conducted a written “interview” with Chat to test its knowledge and in this episode I report on my findings. In addition, I’ve compiled all of our correspondence into a book titled Conversations on Death with ChatGPT, which you can access now in ebook format. I hope you enjoy hearing about my adventures with Chat!

Get the book

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This episode includes:

  • What an AI language model consists of and how to interact with it
  • The amazing depth and breadth of content and resources that ChatGPT was able to generate in a matter of seconds
  • What I learned about euphemisms for death from Chat
  • What Chat got wrong about for-profit hospice
  • How Chat needed better information about talking to children about death
  • Chat’s creative ideas for promoting advance care planning in predominantly Black communities
  • Chat’s thoughts about the 5-stages model of grief
  • A haiku Chat wrote about grief
  • How Chat helped me deal with guilt over my father’s suicide death

Links mentioned in this episode:

If you enjoy this content please share it with others and consider leaving a review on iTunes. Thanks again to all supporters on my page at Patreon.com/eolu, especially my newest patrons Susan Mackey and Colleen Bracken, and to Laura Srygley for buying me a coffee and Fabricio Vasconcelos de Lima for donating on Paypal! Your contributions make all the difference.

EOLPodcast

Ep. 391 Dying in America: A Journalist’s Exploration with Ann Neumann

kwyattmd

Learn about this journalist’s research into “the good death” and what she learned through seven years of study and travel across the U.S.

My guest Ann Neumann is a journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Harper’s magazine, The Baffler, Guernica magazine, and elsewhere. After caring for her father at his end of life she became a hospice volunteer and began to research the meaning of a “good death” in this country, which led to her book The Good Death: An Exploration of Dying in America. She shares some of the things she learned about death as she traveled the country and listened to opinions, beliefs, and stories about what constitutes a good death. Learn more at her website:

www.annneumann.wordpress.com

Get the book here

Watch on YouTube

Listen here:

This episode includes:

  • How Ann’s experience caring for her father at the end of his life inspired her research for the book
  • How Ann and her family felt unprepared for the actual dying process even though they were receiving care from hospice
  • How the “gentle” marketing of hospice and death care services can obscure the reality of the challenges of dying
  • The tragedy of “false hope” being offered to patients rather than factual information
  • Where Ann found inspiration for each of the topics she covered in the book (e.g. medical aid in dying, pro-life movement, religious influence on dying, disability issues, prison hospice)
  • Why “dignity” can mean something different to people who live with disabilities
  • The extensive work needed to overcome racial disparities in end-of-life care and restore trust

Links mentioned in this episode:

If you enjoy this content please share it with others and consider leaving a review on iTunes. Thanks again to all supporters on my page at Patreon.com/eolu, especially my newest patron Jason P. and thank you also the anonymous person who bought me 5 coffees! Your contributions make all the difference.

EOLPodcast

Ep. 374 Why We Need to Talk About Death with Lisa Pahl LCSW and Lori LoCicero

kwyattmd

Learn how The Death Deck helps people have important and necessary conversations about death and dying.

My guests today are the co-creators of The Death Deck, a card game to help inspire conversations about death, dying and grief. Lisa Pahl LCSW is a Hospice Social Worker and ER Crisis Interventionist. Lori LoCicero is a writer and entrepreneur and runs a website to help others travel their paths through difficulty. Together they will share why they decided to create The Death Deck, how it can be used, and why conversations about death matter. Learn more about The Death Deck at the website:

www.thedeathdeck.com

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This episode includes:

  • What The Death Deck offers and how it helps inspire conversations about death
  • Why it’s important to talk about death, dying and grief
  • How Lori feels she and her husband would have benefitted from talking about these issues before he became ill
  • New version (The EOL Deck) coming soon to help people who are facing terminal illness or at the end of life
  • Creative ideas for using The Death Deck in various situations

Links mentioned in this episode:

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If you enjoy this content please share it with others and consider leaving a review on iTunes. Thanks again to all supporters on my page at Patreon.com/eolu, and to all who have made donations through Paypal or Buy Me a Coffee! Your contributions make all the difference.

EOLPodcast

Ep. 370 Date with Death Club: Exploring Mortality in Community with Rev. Karen Johnston

kwyattmd

Learn about a free curriculum you can bring to your community to foster conversations about death.

My guest Rev. Karen Johnston is an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister and the founder of Date with Death Club. Her own spiritual practice centers on “befriending death” and she shares how this led her to create the curriculum for Date with Death Club. We discuss how to work on befriending death and why education about death is essential. Karen tells us how to join the Date with Death Club and register to use her curriculum for free. Learn more at her website:

www.datewithdeathclub.com

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This episode includes:

  • Karen’s spiritual practice of befriending death
  • The benefits of making friends with death and losing fear
  • We must go through the fear of death rather than around it
  • How Karen became inspired to create the Date with Death Club
  • The subjects included in this secular curriculum and how they can be used in a variety of ways
  • What are “third things” and why they help us explore our heartspace about difficult issues
  • The importance of addressing our “eco-grief” right now
  • Why Karen is offering it for others to use at no charge
  • How to get involved and utilize the curriculum in your own community

Links mentioned in this episode:

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If you enjoy this content please share it with others and consider leaving a review on iTunes. Thanks again to all supporters on my page at Patreon.com/eolu, especially my newest patron Bob McInnis, and to Dawn Greene for making a donation through Paypal! Your contributions make all the difference.

EOLPodcast

Ep. 368 Why Death Education is Important with Karen Wyatt

kwyattmd

Learn some ideas for how you might teach others in your community about death and dying and why you should.

In today’s solo episode I’ll share with you my thoughts on why death education is so essential in our society today. No matter what type of work you do in the end-of-life field (estate attorney, hospice staff, death doula, home funeral guide, green burial practitioner, bereavement counselor) you need to help educate your community about death, dying and grief if you want people to utilize your services. Right now we ALL need to become death educators in our own special way and I’ll talk about why that’s true and how you might get involved.

Watch on YouTube to see the slides

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This episode includes:

  • We are living longer and developing complex diseases (like Alzheimer’s) with increasing incidence.
  • Medical tech continues to advance rapidly allowing us to prolong life (even when patient’s don’t want that).
  • Our society is divided over ethical and moral dilemmas around end-of-life issues like medical aid in dying and removal of life support.
  • Being unprepared for death has a high financial cost (too much medical care and wasteful after-death care)
  • There is also and emotional and spiritual cost to ignoring death.
  • Where we need to be teaching about death, dying and grief:
    • The home – showing parents how to talk to their children about death
    • Schools – teaching high school and college students about death through classes, book clubs, discussion groups
    • Churches – clergy members need to know about EOL issues in order to better serve their congregations
    • Workplaces – employers and staff need to know how to deal with death and grief at work
    • Medical facilities – of course all medical personnel need much more education about death, grief, and how to deal with EOL decisions
    • Assisted living and nursing homes – staff also need to know how to handle grief, help residents with ACP, create sacred space for dying residents

Links mentioned in this episode:

Buy me a coffee

Donate on Paypal

If you enjoy this content please share it with others and consider leaving a review on iTunes. Thanks again to all supporters on my page at Patreon.com/eolu, especially my newest patron Francesca Arnoldy, and to those who have bought me a coffee and made a donation through Paypal! Your contributions make all the difference.

EOLPodcast

Ep. 367 Increasing Death Awareness in Japan with Masatoshi Shoji

kwyattmd

Learn how this man’s experience with grief led him to start a Death Café in Japan and become a death doula and Willow EOL educator.

My guest Masatoshi Shoji is a licensed acupuncturist, health communicator and medical translator in Sendai Japan. He started Death Café Sendai in his hometown in 2015 and since then has trained as a certified grief counselor, death doula and Willow EOL Educator. He shares why he first became interested in working with grief and death and his experiences with Death Café in Japan.

Visit his website

Watch on YouTube

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This episode includes:

  • Masatoshi’s experience with grief as a young widower in Japan
  • What inspired him to create Death Café Sendai
  • How he organized and promoted his first Death Café
  • Resources that Masatoshi is using to further his own death education
  • The gradual growth in popularity of Death Café in Japan
  • The obstacles to talking about death in his community, including the use of implicit language
  • How Masatoshi felt socially marginalized as a young widower in his community
  • His goal to bring acupuncture to hospice and end-of-life care

Links mentioned in this episode:

Buy me a coffee

Donate on Paypal

If you enjoy this content please share it with others and consider leaving a review on iTunes. Thanks again to all supporters on my page at Patreon.com/eolu, especially my newest patron Merlin Murdock, and to those who have bought me a coffee and made a donation through Paypal! Your contributions make all the difference.

EOLPodcast

Ep. 366 The Death Conversation Game and Talking About Death with Angela Fama

kwyattmd

Learn about a creative game to help foster conversations about death.

My guest Angela Fama is an artist and photographer who lives in Vancouver Canada and is also a recently trained death doula. She created the Death Conversation Game and facilitates online seasonal Let’s Talk About Death conversations. She will share how she became interested in exploring death as a subject and why she created the game. We will also play a few rounds of the game so you can see how it works! Learn more at her websites:

www.angelafama.com

www.deathconversationgame.com

Get the game here

Watch on YouTube

Listen here:

This episode includes:

  • Angela’s What is Love project
  • How focusing on love led her eventually to learn about death
  • Why Angela needed to talk about death after a serious accident
  • What inspired the Death Conversation Game
  • How playing a game helps facilitate conversations about death
  • Why it’s important for people to talk about death
  • How to create a safe, trauma-informed space to discuss death
  • We play the game to demonstrate how it works
  • Who might benefit from using the game in their work
  • How Angela’s time in Zimbabwe influenced her decision to become a death doula
  • Angela’s request for a collaborator to extend the reach of the game

Do you realize that everyone you know someday will die?“

The Flaming Lips from Do You Realize

Links mentioned in this episode:

  • Song: Do You Realize by The Flaming Lips
  • Get in touch with Angela: info@deathconversationgame.com

Buy me a coffee

Donate on Paypal

If you enjoy this content please share it with others and consider leaving a review on iTunes. Thanks again to all supporters on my page at Patreon.com/eolu, especially my newest patron Martha Lundgren, and to those who have bought me a coffee and made a donation through Paypal! Your contributions make all the difference.

EOLPodcast

Ep. 365 How to Live a Death-Aware Life with Karen Wyatt MD (ENCORE)

kwyattmd

Learn the benefits of having a personal practice to increase our death-awareness.

In this encore solo episode I’ll be sharing with you research that shows that the human brain has a primal mechanism to protect us from thinking about and acknowledging our own personal death. Even those of us who study death and teach others how to prepare for the end of life can be in denial about our own mortality. However, living with “death awareness” is the best way to grow spiritually and make the most of every moment of life. My book The Tao of Death (with a companion journal) can be used for daily contemplation and help you become more death aware in your own life. Let’s talk about why we need to maintain our death-awareness and how to do it!

www.eoluniversity.com/taoofdeath

Get the book here

Download journal

Watch on YouTube

Listen here:

This episode includes:

  • A study that shows the defenses against death-awareness that exist in the primitive human brain
  • Why personal death-awareness must be intentionally cultivated
  • How death-awareness can expand and transform our lives
  • Why daily death contemplation is essential to our growth
    • Think about the fleeting nature of life
    • Acknowledge fears of death and dying
    • Recognize barriers to awareness
  • Benefits of increased death-awareness:
    • Enjoy the present moment
    • Find comfort in stillness
    • Experience authentic gratitude for life
    • Experience awe
    • Become less attached to material things
    • Be more inclusive and less exclusive
    • See everything as sacred

Links mentioned in this episode:

Buy me a coffee

Donate on Paypal

If you enjoy this content please share it with others and consider leaving a review on iTunes. Thanks again to all supporters on my page at Patreon.com/eolu and to those who have bought me a coffee (thank you Elisa Weger!) and made a donation through Paypal! Your contributions make all the difference.

EOLPodcast

Ep. 338 Ask Doctor Death: Tough Questions About Tough Topics with Terri Daniel and Karen Wyatt

kwyattmd

Learn how Terri Daniel and I used our experiences with loss and grief to motivate the work we do today.

In this episode I’m featuring a conversation I had with the Rev. Dr. Terri Daniel on the Ask Doctor Death Podcast, of which I am an occasional co-host. Terri is the creator of the former Afterlife Awareness Conference and now the Conference on Death, Grief and Belief, which will be held July 2022 in Portland OR. We share a wide-ranging discussion that includes our own personal stories and our spiritual journeys, which have brought us where we are today. Learn more about Terri and the conference:

http://www.danieldirect.net

http://www.deathgriefandbelief.com

Download transcript here

Listen here:

This episode includes:

  • The grief experiences that brought each of us to do work focused on end-of-life issues
  • What it means to us to be spiritual but not religious
  • How we each have found meaning in suffering and grief (and why we wish everyone could)
  • How toxic theology can harm people at the end of life or during grief
  • What we disagree with about some contemporary advice given to those who are grieving (especially on social media)

If you enjoy this content please share it with others and consider leaving a review on iTunes. Thanks again to all supporters on my page at Patreon.com/eolu, especially my new patrons Monica Kaniewska and Katharina Mack! Your contributions make all the difference.

EOLPodcast

Ep. 312 The Wisdom of a Deathwalker for Living and Dying Well with Zenith Virago

kwyattmd

Learn the powerful lessons that come from a long career of service to others at the end of life.

My guest Zenith Virago is a respected pioneer and acknowledged expert in the fields of holistic death and dying. With over 20 years of experience she provides comfort, information and guidance to assist people through the natural and the sacred, the inner and outer journeying as they come to the transition at the end of life. She is the subject of the documentary film “Zen and the Art of Dying” and the co-author of the book The Intimacy of Death and Dying. Zen shares the lessons she has learned over the years from life and death and what it means to be a “Deathwalker.” Learn more at the website:

www.naturaldeathcarecentre.org

Get the book here.

Listen here:

This episode includes:

  • How Zen first became interested in working with dying and death
  • What has changed in death care over the past few decades since she began her work
  • Why each death worker must do their own work in coming to terms with mortality
  • The importance of being able to sit with the mystery of death and not knowing how to fix things
  • Why every death has an “equation” that is unique and needs to be understood
  • How sadness can become grief or joy and both are acceptable reactions to death
  • The one question to ask each person on their deathbed
  • Dying as an “inside job” and tools for preparing for it
  • Why dying well is one of the greatest gifts you can give your loved ones

Links mentioned in this episode:

If you enjoy this content please share it with others and consider leaving a review on iTunes. Thanks again to all supporters on my page at Patreon.com/eolu, especially my newest supporters Elaine MacDonald and Bruce Wadd! Your contributions make all the difference.

EOLPodcast

Ep. 307 Life.Death.Whatever: We All Know How This Ends with Anna Lyons and Louise Winter

kwyattmd

Learn how an EOL doula and funeral director in the UK have teamed up to creatively shift the conversation around death and dying.

My guests Anna Lyons and Louise Winter are the creative team behind the popular Life.Death.Whatever initiative to redesign the dialogue around death and dying. Anna is an end-of-life doula and Louise is a progressive funeral director in the UK. They share how their partnership has allowed them to address the full spectrum of end-of-life issues from terminal diagnosis to the dying process to after-death care and bereavement–all of which are beautifully covered in their newly released book We All Know How This Ends: Lessons About Life and Living from Working with Death and Dying. Learn more at their website:

www.lifedeathwhatever.com

Follow on Instagram: @lifedeathwhat

Get the book here

Listen here

This episode includes:

  • How Anna and Louise teamed up to create Life.Death.Whatever
  • The inspiration behind writing this book
  • How they developed two projects for public participation: Five Things and Unsaid
  • Why it is important to create links between end-of-life and after-death care
  • Sensitive or “taboo” topics covered in the book like sex during illness and at the end of life and what happens to the body during decomposition and cremation
  • Why they included COVID in their new book and the importance of acknowledging the pandemic when we talk about end-of-life issues
  • How to submit your own writing for Five Things or Unsaid
  • The most surprising things they’ve learned about life through working with death

Eat the gelato – especially if it’s salted caramel.”

from We All Know How this Ends by Anna Lyons and Louise Winter

Links mentioned in this episode:

  • Submit your Five Things or Unsaid writing to submissions@lifedeathwhatever.com
  • Sign up for the 2021 online reading group A Year of Reading Dangerously at this link
  • Support your local bookstore by buying my books on Bookshop and Indiebound: 7 Lessons for Living from the Dying and The Journey from Ego to Soul
  • Subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Google, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Stitcher Radio
  • Check out the Series I’ve recorded in the past here
  • Join the team at Patreon.com/eolu and get access to the EOLU mug: “Mind if we talk about death?” (only Patrons can purchase it). PLUS get our new bonuses: the monthly EOL News Update, movie reviews from 2 Doctors and a Movie, and automatic access to A Year of Reading Dangerously!

If you enjoy this content please share it with others and consider leaving a review on iTunes! Thanks again to all supporters on my page at Patreon.com/eolu! Your contributions make all the difference!

EOLPodcast

Ep. 300 Training EOL Educators to Change the World with Michelle Pante and Reena Lazar

kwyattmd

Learn why and how to become an EOL Educator through a new program offered by WillowEOL.

My guests Michelle Pante and Reena Lazar are co-founders of Willow End of Life Education and Planning and co-authors of 7 Tools for Making Sense of Life & Death, the workbook and the self-study online program. They have also created the Willow EOL Educator™ Program, which we discuss in this interview. They share the importance of providing education to both the public and healthcare providers in order to change the way we manage the end of life and to find the greatest meaning in life. They are offering a $200 discount to their EOL Educator™ Program for listeners who sign up before the end of May 2021. Learn more and sign up with the coupon code EOLU200 at this link:

educators.willoweol.com

Listen here:

This episode includes:

  • How COVID accelerated the development of the EOL Educators Program
  • Why EOL education is so important right now
  • What inspired Michelle and Reena to create this program
  • Who can benefit from becoming a Willow EOL Educator
  • What the program includes
  • How participants can tailor their own workshops using Willow’s materials
  • How this program augments other training programs and does not compete or preclude any other system

To change the world we need a global network of heart-centred, end-of-life educators.”

Reena Lazar and Michelle Pante

Links mentioned in this episode:

If you enjoy this content please share it with others and consider leaving a review on iTunes! Thanks again to all supporters on my page at Patreon.com/eolu! Your contributions make all the difference!

EOLPodcast

Ep. 262 Vital Decisions: Innovations for Advance Care Planning with Tracy Brubaker

kwyattmd

Learn how an innovative company is contracting with insurers to educate patients about decision-making around advanced illnesses.

My guest Tracy Brubaker is the COO of Vital Decisions, a company founded by Dr. Jessica Zitter to focus on changing the way people with advanced illness receive care by encouraging advance care planning. She shares how Vital Decisions contracts with insurers to provide education and counseling to their clients and the impact they are having on end-of-life care. Learn more about Vital Decisions at the website:

www.vitaldecisions.net

Listen here:

This episode includes:

  • What inspired the creation of Vital Decisions
  • How Vital Decisions works with insurers to educate their clients and guide them through advance care planning at no cost to the patient
  • Why Vital Decisions chooses Masters level clinicians as their team members
  • How team members initiate and structure conversations about end-of-life issues
  • The two most common motivations for people to decide to complete their advance directives
  • 60-70% of Vital Decisions clients complete their paperwork and have conversations with the important people in their lives
  • Benefits to patients and insurers: fewer inpatient and ER visits, less unwanted aggressive treatment, and lower costs at end of life
  • How the My Living Voice program helps healthy individuals easily complete an advance directive online at no cost
  • How the Guided Living Voice program educates patients and their families about palliative care

Links mentioned in this episode:

  • Subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Google, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Stitcher Radio
  • Check out the Series I’ve recorded in the past here
  • Join the team at Patreon.com/eolu and get access to the EOLU mug: “Mind if we talk about death?” (only Patrons can purchase it). PLUS get our new bonuses: the monthly EOL News Update, movie reviews from 2 Doctors and a Movie, and automatic access to A Year of Reading Dangerously!

If you enjoy this content please share it with others and consider leaving a review on iTunes! Thanks again to all supporters on my page at Patreon.com/eolu! Your contributions make all the difference!

EOLPodcast

Ep. 256 The Live Well Die Well Tour: Death Education Meets the Road with Kimberly Paul

kwyattmd

Learn the inside story of this groundbreaking tour across America to promote conversations about death and dying.

My guest Kimberly Paul last appeared on End-of-Life University 2 years ago as she was preparing to embark on a courageous adventure: traveling across the US in an RV and teaching and talking about death and dying with people she met along the way. Today she returns to the podcast to share her inside stories of the Live Well Die Well Tour and the lessons she learned on her extraordinary journey. She is also the host of Death by Design Podcast and the author of the book Bridging the Gap: Life Lessons from the Dying. Learn more at her website:

www.deathbydesign.com

Listen here:

The Live Well Die Well Tour with Kimberly Paul

This episode includes:

  • What inspired Kimberly to create the Live Well Die Well Tour
  • How she planned and prepared for her journey
  • The ups and downs of a 2-year road trip in an RV
  • Stories of Kimberly’s memorable experiences on the journey (including a special tow truck driver)
  • How COVID-19 impacted her journey
  • How she hopes to use the stories she’s gathered from across the country to inform Congress about changes needed to improve end-of-life care in the US
  • What’s next for Kimberly in her quest to make a difference in how we approach death and dying

Links mentioned in this episode:

If you enjoy this content please share it with others and consider leaving a review on iTunes! Thanks again to all supporters on my page at Patreon.com/eolu! Your contributions make all the difference!

EOLPodcast

Ep. 251 Insights Into the Experience of Dying with Jennie Dear

kwyattmd

Learn about current research into the experience of dying as a physical, emotional and spiritual process.

My guest Jennie Dear, who has been a journalist, English professor and hospice volunteer, was curious about the question “what does it feel like to die?” so she conducted her own research project. After interviewing doctors, nurses, psychologists, and other experts about the passage between diagnosis and death, she wrote a book (What Does it Feel Like to Die?) to share the hopeful insights she gained. She discusses what she learned from that project and what most people don’t know and need to know about the dying process. Learn more about her work at the website:

www.jenniedear.com

Listen here:

This episode includes:

  • Why and how Jennie wrote this book
  • How knowing about the physical process of dying can help people prepare better for the end of life
  • Why some dying patients’ pain is not alleviated
    • Fear of opioid abuse
    • Other untreated symptoms
    • Mental/emotional suffering of the dying process
  • Neuroscience experiments with patients in a vegetative state show patients are more aware than they appear to be
  • How do we know that “hearing is the last sense to go” for a dying patient
  • The 4 trajectories of dying (according to Dr. Joanne Lynn) and why it’s helpful to understand them
    • Sudden death
    • Terminal illness
    • Chronic illness
    • Frailty
  • Most common reasons for choosing medical aid in dying:
    • Fear of pain
    • Not wanting to be a burden to family
    • Not wanting to prolong the dying process

Links mentioned in this episode:

  • Course: Racism in Death Care – Confronting Bias, Ignorance and Prejudice taught by Joel Anthony and Anita Grant
  • Get Jennie’s book here: What Does it Feel Like to Die?
  • Get Karen’s book here: 7 Lessons for Living from the Dying
  • Dr. Joanne Lynn discusses 3 Trajectories of Death – video
  • The Five Trajectories pdf by Jennifer Moore Ballentine
  • Jennie’s YouTube video
  • Join the team at Patreon.com/eolu and get access to the EOLU mug: “Mind if we talk about death?” (only Patrons can purchase it). PLUS get our new bonuses: the monthly EOL News Update, movie reviews from 2 Doctors and a Movie, and automatic access to A Year of Reading Dangerously!

If you enjoy this content please share it with others and consider leaving a review on iTunes! Thanks again to all supporters on my page at Patreon.com/eolu, especially my newest Patron: Heather Capuano. Your contributions make all the difference!

End of Life, EOLPodcast, Spirituality

Ep. 237 Physician Burnout: Why Death Awareness Could Make a Difference

kwyattmd

Learn how death-denial may contribute to physician burnout and how to change it.

In this solo episode I share my thoughts on the inner reasons why physicians may burn out and how increased death awareness could be a solution. Now more than ever we need death-informed education for all physicians, which would transform medical practice in general and especially end-of-life care.

Listen here:

Physician Burnout

This episode includes:

  • Survey showing that 44% of physicians report being burned out. largely due to external factors out of their control
  • Article by Dr. Keith Corl describes “moral injury” for physicians who are asked to practice in a way that violates their moral integrity
  • Multiple deeply-ingrained factors that arise from medical training and lead to lack of satisfaction in medical practice
  • 4 principles all med students should be taught:
    • Death is inevitable and not a failure
    • Death is a mystery we cannot control
    • Death makes life more precious
    • Dying is an opportunity for transformation
  • Doctors need to find balance between holding onto life and letting go when the time is right
  • Also need to learn to grieve over patient deaths in a positive way

Links mentioned in this episode:

If you enjoy this content please share it with others and consider leaving a review on iTunes! Thanks again to all supporters on my page at Patreon.com/eolu, especially my newest Patron  Donna Peizer. Your contributions make all the difference!

End of Life, EOLPodcast

Ep. 227 Approaching the Tipping Point: Looking Back at a Decade of Change and Ahead to 2020

kwyattmd

Learn how changes that began in the last decade foreshadow future growth in the death-positive movement.

In this final solo episode for 2019 I take a look back at some of the significant events of the past decade that helped to move forward the end-of-life movement. Then I share some tips and insights for continuing the momentum for positive change and increased death awareness in 2020. Find out how you can be part of the future as we move toward better care of the dying and the dead in our society.

Listen here:

This episode includes:

  • Previous events that helped set the stage for the momentum of the past decade (e.g. Five Wishes, Green Burial Council, Suzanne O’Brien’s community training for doulas)
  • Major movements of the past decade that have helped shift the narrative on death and dying:
    • National Home Funeral Alliance
    • The Conversation Project
    • Death Cafe
    • Ask a Mortician with Caitlin Doughty
    • Confessions of a Funeral Director with Caleb Wilde
    • Death Over Dinner
    • Atul Gawande’s book Being Mortal
    • Recompose (formerly the Urban Death Project)
    • Brittany Maynard’s quest for death with dignity
    • formation of the EOL Doula Council
  • What we have learned from the natural childbirth movement
  • Tips for continuing the momentum in 2020:
    • Don’t wait – the time is now
    • It will take all of us to create change – form coalitions and collaborations
    • Create a unified message for the cause
    • Education is critical
    • Tailor the message for specific groups
    • Be in it for the long haul (growth takes time)

Links mentioned in this episode:

  • Episode 145 and 146: What the EOL Movement Can Learn from the Natural Childbirth Movement
  • Episode 128: Why We Need Death Ed for Everyone Right Now
  • Interview with Deanna Cochran on EOL doula movement
  • Episode 186: How to Bring Death Doulas to the Hospice Team
  • Join the team at Patreon.com/eolu and get access to the EOLU mug: “Mind if we talk about death?” (only Patrons can purchase it). PLUS get our new bonuses: the monthly EOL News Update, movie reviews from 2 Doctors and a Movie, and automatic access to A Year of Reading Dangerously!

If you enjoy this content please share it with others and consider leaving a review on iTunes! Thanks again to all supporters on my page at Patreon.com/eolu, especially my newest Patron Delana Schneider, your contributions make all the difference!