Professionals Strive to Improve Serious Illness Conversation Skills through the JHF Death and Dying Series

The Jewish Healthcare Foundation’s (JHF's) work has long focused on promoting effective, compassionate end-of-life care and maintaining a well-trained healthcare workforce. These two focus areas have come together in the Foundation’s Death and Dying Series for Healthcare Professionals, which kicked off on September 9 and runs through October 7.

This program, inspired by the popular Death and Dying Feinstein Fellowship for graduate students, was created to address the persistent gap in healthcare professional education around communicating about serious illness and the end of life. Through five virtual sessions, 33 professionals from nursing, social work, pharmacy, physical therapy, education, and community health convened toward the shared goal of enhancing their knowledge and skills around having more effective serious illness conversations with patients, families, and colleagues.

Over the course of the series, participants learn techniques for navigating the complex emotions that arise in conversations about serious illness; the importance of maintaining cultural humility when engaging with patients and families from diverse backgrounds; strategies for having effective conversations about advance care planning and Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST); finding the meaning behind requests for physician aid in dying; thinking through ethical considerations in serious illness care; having effective hospice conversations; addressing spiritual concerns at the end of life; and navigating grief as a healthcare professional.

Participant Danielle Huhn, LCSW, ACHP-SW, a hospice and palliative care social worker with West Virginia University Uniontown Hospital, reflected on her experience in the Series: “This program has been such a wonderful experience for me. It has been truly helpful to learn from these different perspectives and disciplines on their approaches to handling death and dying. I feel I am more effective at my job when I can learn from others and other perspectives.”

Speakers and facilitators include: Joseph Bertino, PhD, HEC-C, Wellstar Health System; Judy Black; Theresa Brown, PhD, BSN, RN, writer, nurse, patient; Kalpana Char, MD, UPMC Health Plan; Annette Dye, DNP, CRNP, ACHPN, Heritage Valley Health System; Justin Engleka, GNP-BC, ACHPN, Highmark Health; Emily Jaffe, MD, MHA, Highmark Health; Heather Mikes, DO, UPMC East and McKeesport Hospitals and University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine; Libby Moore, PhD, Federated Guardians; Natalie O’Loughlin, MS, Magee-Womens Hospital; Rachel Ombres, MD, Allegheny Health Network, Division of Supportive Care; Sinthana Ramsey, DO, UPMC; Jane Schell, MD, Nephrology and Palliative Care at University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and UPMC Health System; Jonathan Weinkle, MD, Squirrel Hill Health Center; and Nancy Zionts, JHF COO/Chief Program Officer.