COMMON THREADS
The signature speakers' bureau of Life Quality Institute, Common Threads, provides unique presentations to inform and engage individuals in meaningful conversations about palliative care.
Presentations
To request a speaker for one of the following presentations OR to develop a presentation specific to your audience, contact Jane Barton at (303) 398-6230 or at jbarton@lifequalityinstitute.org.
The Family Challenge of Illness
Chronic, advanced, or terminal illness is not an individual crisis; rather, it is a family challenge. Illness threatens to destabilize the family system thus impacting everyone in the system. The various stages of an illness (acute, chronic, and terminal) require different responses and skills for a family to effectively meet the various challenges of an illness. Understanding the family structure, communication styles, family beliefs, and multigenerational patterns is beneficial for pastoral and healthcare professionals as well as family members.
Hospice and Palliative Care: A Philosophy of Compassionate Care
Palliative care is an interdisciplinary approach to healthcare that recognizes the physical, emotional, and spiritual aspects of illness. Interdisciplinary teams of healthcare professionals serve patients and families to address suffering at various levels…mind, body, and spirit. Hospice is a form of palliative care reserved for those deemed terminal with less than six (6) months to live.
Grief: Out of the Closet: The Need to Mourn Our Losses
We live in a society that grieves well and mourns poorly. We have become experts in stuffing our emotions, avoiding the pain of our losses, and diverting our attention through addictive behaviors. There comes a time when we need to air out our losses, experience and express the intensity of our emotions, and understand that our losses must be integrated into our lives, not avoided.
Grief “At Work”
Have you ever experienced the death of a co-worker? Has a co-worker experienced a significant loss? If you are a healthcare professional, have you experienced the loss of a patient? When employed, have you experienced a significant loss? If you answer yes to any of these questions, you have experienced grief “at work.” Too often in the workplace we do not know how to respond to those who are grieving. Instead of avoiding the obvious pain, let’s explore the possibilities of supporting and companioning one another as we honor the losses in our lives.
Advance Directives: Five Wishes and Ethical Wills
Advance directives document your wishes for healthcare when you are unable (physically or mentally) to articulate those wishes. The most important designation is that of Medical Durable Power of Attorney, the person you wish to serve as your healthcare agent when you are incapacitated. Completing an advance directive and then discussing the contents with your family and friends is a tremendous gift, a gift that alleviates the doubt and overwhelming responsibility associated with end-of-life decisions.
LIFE Wishes
This may come as a shock to some, but death is not optional. We as human beings are born "terminal"…we ain't getting outta here alive! This is said not to trivialize death; rather, it is said to highlight the importance of living each moment. Since we have no guarantees other than our mortality, we should be compelled to discuss and explain our end-of-life wishes with our family and friends. Do not miss this opportunity. Your life depends on it.
From Wishes to Reality
Planning…a process required to insure a fabulous vacation, sufficient retirement funds, and the needed resources for your child’s college education. These are plans most people willing make. But do you have plans to insure your wishes will become your reality regarding your healthcare, caregiving needs, and final arrangements? Explore the available resources and options regarding advance directives, caregiving models, and personal planning guides by attending “From Wishes to Reality.”.The workshop is informative, engaging, and interactive. Do NOT delay…the quality of your life depends on it!!!
Creating Communities of Care
Currently in the United States, an estimated 52 million people are serving as primary caregivers who face the daily challenges posed by chronic, advanced, or terminal illnesses. At a time when our healthcare systems are stressed, families are geographically scattered, and technology serves to isolate and insulate, Share The Care™ is a refreshing and relational approach to caregiving. Family members, friends, colleagues, neighbors, and volunteers unite to create a community of care...a community offering time and talents to meet the diverse and varied needs of the patient and their family.
Caring Insights: The Wisdom of Sheep
How does our faith, our foundational spiritual beliefs, inform our ability to give and receive care? For most, we have an inherent desire to help other people; we give of our time, talents, and treasures to those in need. However, it is very difficult to ask for help. By exploring Psalm 23 and examining the role of "good shepherd," perhaps we can gain a new perspective on the continuous cycle of giving AND receiving.
Compassion Fatigue: Reduced Capacity to Care
To witness the suffering of another person (emotionally, spiritually, or physically) puts us at risk of experiencing compassion fatigue. Whether working as a professional caregiver or companioning our friends and family, we often manifest the stress expressed by those we serve due to our empathetic and compassionate response to the situation. We must learn to recognize the signals of compassion fatigue, in ourselves and our colleagues, and subsequently engage in corrective behaviors.
Moral Distress: The Elephant in the Room
A person experiences moral distress as a result of an ethical conflict in which one is constrained from doing the morally “right” thing. Within our healthcare system today, clinical, psycho-social, spiritual, and administrative professionals confront complex medical questions and concerns that give rise to moral distress. In a broader context, all those working in end-of-life professions are at risk of experiencing moral distress. Moral distress is often depicted by increased employee dissatisfaction, diminished quality of patient/family care, and elevated staff attrition rates. Therefore, it is important to distinguish moral distress from other forms of stress so that the root of the distress can be effectively addressed. The goal is not to eliminate moral distress. Rather, the goal is to recognize, confront, and transform the “elephant in the room.”
Cultural Competency in Palliative Care
Cultural competency is a topic of great interest within the healthcare profession currently. It is defined as “a set of academic and personal skills that allow us to increase our understanding and appreciation of cultural differences between groups" (American Medical Student Association). Cultural Competency is a term rejected by some because it implies competency is acquired by developing a particular skill set. Instead, cultural competence has more to do with respectful and thoughtful inquiry combined with attentive listening. Those who profess to be culturally competent must have well developed powers of observation and listening. Cultural competence is not about learning of a particular group of people. It is about knowing an individual within the context of their cultural background and interacting appropriately.
The Costs of Caring: The Impact of Caregiving on Men
Caregiving is a common concern for all of us in the United States resulting from longer life expectancies and projected demographic trends. Regardless of our age or gender, we will be called upon to care for someone we know and love. Women in western culture have historically been viewed as the “caregiver”(only 20% of caregivers were men); however, men are now assuming the role more often in recent years (>40% of caregivers are men). It is important to recognize and understand how men and women experience the role of caregiver…commonalities and differences. Quite often due to different communication styles, social support, and approaches to grieving, men experience the role of caregiver quite differently than women.
Viewing Illness and End-of-Life through the Spiritual Lens
When working with patients and their families, pastoral caregivers and healthcare professionals must understand how patients perceive illness. Punishment? A test of faith? Biological defect? Luck of the draw? There is not a “right” answer or universal truth regarding illness. However, a patient’s rendering of the illness often reveals her approach to knowledge and truth. What lens is she viewing the situation through and thereby making sense of the situation? Cultural? Spiritual? Family Norms? Historical? The interpretation of the events in life, the ability to cope, and the subsequent discernment of meaning relates directly to the construction of knowledge and the determination of truth. Furthermore, the patient’s understanding of an illness will inform how the patient experiences the illness and the decisions made regarding treatment options and end of life care. In order to cope with a life limiting illness, we often resort to our foundational, sustaining principles: religious and/or spiritual beliefs. When considering the functional nature of religion, it is concerned with how people come to terms with the ultimate issues of life such as death, suffering, tragedy, evil, and pain. It is the search for significance. By being sensitive, respectful, and attentive to the influence of spiritual beliefs regarding end of life decisions, we are better able to compassionately address the ethical dilemmas so prevalent in healthcare today and thereby hopefully avoid divisive confrontation. We must seek to understand before we seek to be understood.
The Big Squeeze: The Challenges of the Sandwich Generation
The Sandwich Generation is comprised of people who care for their aging parents while raising/supporting their own children. Balancing the needs of our parents with those of our children poses many challenges: financial, emotional, physical, and spiritual. As the needs increase, we begin to feel "squeezed" for time, money, patience, emotions, and faith. We need to recognize that balance cannot be achieved if we disregard our own health and well being in the process. Join us to acknowledge the challenges and to explore available resources for maintaining and sustaining a balanced life.
How is it with Your Soul?
What is existential suffering, and why is it so often a concern at the end of life? Explore the relationship between spirituality and existential suffering in order to determine appropriate assessment tools and subsequent effective interventions.
Professional Boundaries: Discerning the Line in the Sand
Professional boundaries are needed to protect patients and families as well as healthcare providers. This statement is reinforced by the existing codes of ethics and standards of conducts associated with specific disciplines within the healthcare community. It is important for a healthcare provider to understand the demarcation between self and patient/client in order to serve in a mutually beneficial manner. However, boundaries are diverse in nature, some seemingly difficult to distinguish at times. It is therefore important to review periodically the characteristics of boundaries, the authoritative sources defining boundaries, the varieties of boundaries, the evidence and implications of crossed boundaries, and the available resources for boundary resolutions.
To schedule a presentation for your organization, church, social or civic group, agency, corporation, or educational institution, please contact Jane Barton at (303) 398-6230 or email at jbarton@lifequalityinstitute.org.
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