A Shifting Landscape for End-of-Life Ethics (ESSEE)

Learning Objectives

At the conclusion of this program, participants will be able to:

1. Describe the ethical principles surrounding end-of-life care and how they apply to patient and family care;
2. Identify four prevailing and emerging challenges for hospice and palliative care providers and staff and how those challenges should be ethically addressed.
3. Describe the basic requirements of the Hospice Medicare Benefit and identify how they may enhance or impede ethical practice.
4. Discuss the ways that factors such as patient’s age, medical history, diagnosis, capacity, cultural values can influence and at times, complicate ethical practice and decision making.
5. Identify strategies to navigate ethical dilemmas that may arise during grief counseling.
6. Describe how both ethical and unethical practices can create moral distress, influencing the grief reactions of families, hospice and palliative staff, and volunteers and how an ethics committee can help educate staff and families while guiding ethical practice.

Expert Panelists

Karen Bullock, PhD, LCSW, FGSA, APHSW-C

Karen Bullock is the Ahearn Endowed Professor in the Boston College School of Social Work. Her practice interests include health disparities and health equity in serious illness care; aging and gerontology; and hospice, palliative, and end-of-life care decision making. Her research focuses on cancer care, social support for older adults, diversity, equity, and cultural factors...

Meet Karen

Timothy Kirk, PhD, HEC-C

Timothy Kirk is Professor of Philosophy at the City University of New York, York College, specializing in healthcare ethics with an emphasis on hospice and palliative care. He also holds an appointment in the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center. Kirk is an ethics consultant with MJHS Hospice & Palliative Care, one...

Meet Timothy

Kenneth J. Doka, PhD, MDiv

Kenneth Doka is Senior Vice President of Grief Programs at Hospice Foundation of America (HFA) and the recipient of the 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of Death Education and Counseling (ADEC). A prolific author and editor, Doka serves as editor of HFA’s Living with Grief® book series, its Journeys newsletter, and numerous other books and publications. He...

Meet Kenneth J.

Wendy Walters, LICSW, HEC-C

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...

Meet Wendy

Program Details

CE Information