Experts & Educators
We are a hub for the country’s most distinguished hospice and grief experts, researchers, and professionals. HFA experts help to inform and educate on a wide range of timely and relevant topics essential to best practice.
Our HFA educators are well known and widely recognized as experts in their fields.
They’re researchers with decades of knowledge backed by evidenced-based studies.
They’re professionals who have honed their skills with years of patient and family care.
HFA has been privileged to include many notable experts in its professional education offerings over the past 30 years, including the late Earl. A Grollman; Nancy Hogan, RN, PhD; Karla Holloway, PhD; the late William M. Lamers, MD; the late Richard E. Payne, MD.
Below is a complete listing of our presenters and authors from 2020 onward. We are grateful for their willingness to share their expertise to advance hospice and bereavement care through HFA.
As an integral part of hospice care, family caregivers now more than ever find themselves unprepared, overtired, stressed, and without the knowledge and resources they need to provide sufficient care to their loved ones or themselves. Join representatives from three hospice programs to learn about their innovative approaches to enhance family caregiver support while improving patient care and the family caregiving experience.
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Wendy Walters has been in direct clinical practice for over 30 years, with the bulk of that experience in end-of-life care. She spent the first 17 years of her career in hospice work, ultimately returning to UAB in 2006. She joined the UAB Hospital Ethics Committee in 2009 and began taking ethics consults for the…
Karla Washington researches interventions intended to promote the cultural, spiritual, and biopsychosocial wellbeing of patients, families and communities facing life-limiting, serious illnesses. Her research applies digital health solutions in the linked fields of palliative and hospice care. Washington’s current projects include an intervention to support and educate rural hospice family caregivers on controlling pain and…
Michelle Webb is a clinical assistant professor at Duke University School of Nursing. She has diverse nursing practice and leadership experience and has held executive leadership positions in behavioral/psychiatric-mental health, home health, acute care, and hospice care. Webb has nearly 20 years of experience in hospice as a clinician and leader. She is a member…
Ryan Weller is the National Program Manager for Palliative and Hospice Care for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Prior to this role, he was the team leader and clinical social worker for the Portland (Oregon) VA Medical Center’s Palliative Care Consult Team for 20 years. During 10 of those years, he was also the…
Mary Grace Whalen is a freelance writer and the author of a children’s book titled The Legend of Eddie the Whale.
Dorothy Wholihan is director of the Palliative Care Nurse Practitioner Program and a clinical professor of nursing at the NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing. She is a palliative care nurse practitioner with over 40 years of nursing experience and maintains a current practice as a palliative care nurse practitioner at the James J. Peters…
Shana Wierchowski is an instructor in medicine at Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College and the director of inpatient services for palliative medicine at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. She works with seriously ill patients and their care partners in the acute hospital setting as a consultant and at her hospital’s inpatient palliative unit. She…
Joah Williams is an associate professor at the University of Memphis. He has broad research and clinical interests in the area of traumatic stress, extending this work into the related areas of community violence and traumatic grief. His research focuses on psychosocial and health consequences of trauma exposure and the development of traumatic stress prevention…
Hank Willner has focused on hospice and palliative medicine for over 25 years and currently works for Capital Caring Health as a prn Hospice Medical Director and Palliative Care and educational consultant. His special interests include the doctor-patient relationship, informed consent, and bioethics.
William Worden is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and holds academic appointments at the Harvard Medical School and at the Rosemead Graduate School of Psychology in California. He is also Co-Principal Investigator of the Harvard Child Bereavement Study, based at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Recipient of five major National Institutes of Health grants,…
Justin Yopp is a clinical psychologist and clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina (UNC) in Chapel Hill. Yopp is Director of Psycho-Oncology Services within the Comprehensive Cancer Support Program at Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. He co-leads both the Widowed Parent Program and the Parenting with Cancer Clinic at UNC. Yopp…
Yelena Zatulovsky is the Vice President of Patient Experience at AccentCare with over 20 years of bedside experience working with patients and families at the end-of-life. In addition to hospice and palliative care, Yelena is licensed as a Mental Health Practitioner, board-certified as a Child Life Specialist, and holds an advanced designation (along with board certification) as a Hospice &…
Whether you’re a patient, family member, or a friend trying to determine whether hospice is the right choice, HFA is here. We provide guidance before, during, and after the important decisions are made.
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