Agenda

This presentation will provide a deep philosophical and theoretical orientation to Caring Science, a care approach developed by Dr. Jean Watson that has been adopted by healthcare organizations nationally and internationally. Caring Science is a transdisciplinary approach that incorporates the art and science of nursing and includes concepts from the fields of philosophy, ethics, ecology, and mind‒body‒spirit medicine. Palliative care, end-of-life care, and hospice care are all located within the Watson Caring Science Institute’s Caring Science/Sacred Science framework that honors Human Caring or “Caritas” within the Sacred Circle of life, living, death, dying, and life beyond. The 10 Caritas Processes® of the framework will be presented as universals of Human Caring. The discussion will serve as an interdisciplinary a guide to palliative care education, practice, research, and leadership, and will invite a new consciousness and coherent paradigm that integrates and unites diversity within the larger field of palliative care.

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The evolving COVID-19 pandemic exposed systemic inadequacies and the necessity for pioneering solutions to address palliative care for all persons in all settings. Pervasive social, economic, environmental, and geodemographic barriers continue to underscore that not all have benefited from optimal palliative care. This presentation will explore the need for innovative learning approaches that integrate evidence-based research in addressing the barriers, training gaps, and biopsychosocial perspectives needed for comprehensive services. Dr. Miller will speak to a vision that engages the complex challenges and critical opportunities to embrace diverse perspectives and creates new frameworks to facilitate advancements in equitable palliative care.

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Dr. Elk will address the issue of health equity and the impact of community-engaged partnership with communities to help overcome health disparities. Our times have created a call to action—with the need to respond and reach communities to share their voice. This presentation will bring understanding to the importance of culture and why it is relevant in providing palliative care that is equitable. Culture profoundly shapes how people experience serious illness, dying, and death, yet American end-of-life care is rooted in White, middle-class values that may be misaligned with the values of patients of color. Dr. Elk’s experience with Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR), which is a social justice approach, involves a collaborative partnership between community members and academia. The goal is to find solutions to an unjust problem. Attendees will learn how to develop culturally concordant, racism-free palliative care.

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Most of the skills of the palliative care provider are the same between the adult patient and the pediatric setting, however there are some important considerations in approaching the pediatric setting that can help every provider be successful. Dr. Fisher will use a case-based approach to highlight some ways in which the approach to the pediatric patient and their family may be made more accessible.

The mental and emotional injuries that accompany trauma are readily identified. Less recognized are the insidious wounds that occur when we deny the truth of our own experience, becoming separated from our “real” self—our BE-ing. Whether traumatic or insidious, these “soul injuries” cause an emotional pain that might cut us off from the essence of our BE-ing. Connecting with the part of self generating the pain, paradoxically, restores wholeness. Thus, soul restoration includes learning how to re-own, re-home, and revitalize scattered pieces of self by cultivating personal intimacy with the part of self carrying our emotional pain. The basis for addressing “soul injury” originated with a group of VA hospice nurses who cared for 10,000 dying veterans. The nurses witnessed “soul injuries” firsthand as they surfaced unbidden on combat veterans’ deathbeds. Let “warrior wisdom” show you how the heart can be disarmed through love, forgiveness, and self-compassion, starting a process that “restores the soul.”