The Heart of Hospice Podcast

We’re honored to feature hospice physician and innovator BJ Miller in an amazing discussion about strengths, trends, and the future of end-of-life care.  Dr. Miller is an advocate, thought-leader, and leader on the front lines of end-of-life care.  He has been a physician for 19 years and has counseled over 1,000 patients and family members. This vast experience has led him to understand what peop...

In the final episode of our Patient Right series, we’re talking about the right to choose medications, equipment, and who makes visits to the home.  The care that’s provided for a hospice patient is collected into something called a Plan of Care.  That Plan of Care includes every intervention the hospice team provides, including medications, any medical equipment that’s needed, and which disciplin...

Meet RN Keisha Jones and Dr. Michelle Owens of Hospice Austin and hear how they take extraordinary care of their hospice team with a debriefing program. .  After seeing signs of accelerated compassion and moral fatigue in their hospice clinical team in 2021, Keisha and Michelle realized there was more needed beyond pizza parties.  They put their heads together to create a debriefing program.  As d...

Hospice patients have the right to start and stop hospice care. Your hospice, your choices.  After a physician determines that a patient has a “terminal prognosis” - a six-month life expectancy, a patient can be admitted to hospice if the patient chooses to start, or “elect”, hospice. The patient might still refuse to start hospice.  There are numerous reasons why that might happen.  Feeling like...

In episode 3 of our Patient Rights series, we’re talking about the right to choose a physician to manage a patient’s care while on hospice.  When receiving hospice care, the patient or decision-maker has the right to choose which physician will manage care.  The hospice agency is required to let the patient know he can choose an “attending physician”, a doctor who works alongside the hospice medic...

Caregiving for someone with Alzheimer’s or dementia holds its special challenges. Jennifer Fink of the Fading Memories Podcast is with us to share her caregiving experience.  Jennifer became the caregiver for her mom after the death of her dad.  Experiencing all the frustration and challenges, Jennifer looked for podcasts that could help.  After not finding what she needed, Jennifer launched the F...

A common myth about hospice is that patients and families don’t have any choices once hospice care starts, so we’re talking about all the rights patients really do have.  Don't miss this 5 part series! It’s vital that both consumers and providers of hospice care know what rights the patient (or the responsible decision-maker) has.  Those rights are real and every agency serving seriously ill patie...

Who knew that TikTok videos about death and dying would gain 800,000 followers?  Hospice Nurse Julie is our guest, talking about why her hospice videos have gone viral, and what she finds meaningful about working in end-of-life care.   RN Julie McFadden started making the videos, never dreaming that four days later so many people would connect with her content.  As a hospice nurse, Julie has heard...

Bereavement care is part of hospice, but what exactly is it, who does it, and what should it look like?  Hospice agencies in the U.S. are required to offer bereavement services to families and loved ones of patients who die on hospice service.  For up to 13 months after the death, families receive support for their grief.  It can come in many different forms, depending on the individual needs of t...

How's your self-care these days? We're getting back to the basics of care of body, mind, and spirit. Maybe your self care got off track during the pandemic, but it’s always a good time to do a care inventory.  It’s important to ask yourself 5 things about your self care:  1) Is it affordable?  2) Is it sustainable?  3) Is it enjoyable?  4) Is it flexible?  5)  Is it actionable?  Here’s what we kno...

Certified Dementia Practitioner Nicole Shute is talking with us about CareStory and its mission to make caring a collaborative effort between caregivers and families.  According to the CareStory website , CareStory is “a non-medical digital solution approach to bridge the gap between aging populations, their families, and caregivers. It provides individualized holistic person-centered care for sen...

We’re clearing up the confusion about using therapies (physical, speech, and occupational) for hospice patients.  It’s one of the confusing issues in hospice - whether therapy modalities can be used in end of life care.  The truth is that PT, ST, and OT can be utilized in hospice.  The goal of these therapies is not rehabilitation or long-term strengthening.  The real goal for each of these therap...

Solo caregiving is a complicated job. Creating a caregiving village can make it easier. Over 54 million people across the U.S. are unpaid caregivers.  They might provide care for a spouse or partner, child, friend, or parent.  They might also be providing that care by themselves - a solo caregiver.  One person caring for another is often a full time job, especially if there’s a serious illness or...

Humor and compassion overflow in our guest Benjamin Kintisch, hospice chaplain and director of Life Review: The Hospice Musical!  Working with hospice patients as a spiritual counselor inspired Benjamin to tell his patients’ stories in songs that captivate the audience.  Benjamin holds a Masters in Sacred Music and Cantorial degree, and has completed his fourth year of chaplaincy training, having...

Choosing hospice care can be a very difficult decision, whether it’s for yourself or someone you are about. It’s important to respect those choices.  Most people who decide to utilize hospice care have experienced a serious illness.  Sometimes there’s been a catastrophic health event that limits someone’s life expectancy.  It’s easy to judge someone else’s choices from an outsider perspective.  Ev...

Words, terms, and acronyms - it’s important to know how to speak the language to get the best quality hospice you can.  When you’re in an unfamiliar situation, understanding the terms that are being used will help you to manage things better.  There’s a lot of stress when someone is experiencing a serious illness, starting hospice, or communicating with a hospice interdisciplinary team.  Professio...

In recognition of National Healthcare Decisions Day 2022, we’re talking about advance care planning.  What’s your plan for your healthcare and who have you told it to?  National Healthcare Decisions Day was started in 2008 by attorney Nathan Kottkamp to encourage people to complete their advance care planning. Every year on April 16 (the day after Tax Day), National Healthcare Decisions Day is obs...

Hospice nurse and author Pepper Cappuccio is talking with us about his book “Warm Water: The Last Act of Compassion”, and how he creates meaning for patients and their families in their last moments.  Carl “Pepper” Cappuccio has been a nurse for over 15 years, and a hospice nurse for 10 years.  According to his website peppercappuccio.com , “he became a registered nurse more than 15 years ago, how...

Using labels for people can be evidence of our implicit bias. Hospice providers can enhance the quality of care by avoiding labels.  If you have a brain, you have a bias.  It’s who we are as humans.  The key to treating our patients and their families with respect and compassion is to avoid labels that make them less than human.  Healthcare providers might not even realize the labels we give our p...

Daryl Cady, CEO of Hospice of Southern Maine is sharing details about the 2022 Thresholds Conference.   What an amazing opportunity to unite for conversations about end of life!  The conference features keynote speaker Elizabeth Gilbert, #1 New York Times best selling author of Eat, Pray, Love.  Additionally, the conference includes singer/songwriter Michelle Zauner, author of Crying in H Mart.  T...

Today’s guest is a chaplain in the Buddhist tradition and author of “From Grief to Growth: 5 Essential Elements of Action to Give Grief A Purpose and Grow From Your Experience”. You’re going to love our conversation with Paula Stephens!!  Paula has a Master's Degree in Exercise Physiology and studied Buddhist Chaplaincy at  Upaya Institute and Zen Center. She’s a Certified Wellness Coach, Mindfuln...

Financial burden is a real problem for over 55 million caregivers across the U.S. What money issues do people need to consider before they take on the caregiving role?  Often a caregiver has many roles, including being a full time wage earner and other family caregiving responsibilities like kids.  Caregivers spent an average of $7000 of their own money in 2017 for things like medical expenses, le...

We’re wrapping up our Grief Series in collaboration with Gabby Jimenez of The Hospice Heart, featuring social workers Isabel Stenzel and Lisa Pahl of The Death Deck.  After discussing prolonged grief, helping children manage grief, and dealing with grief for someone while still providing care for someone else, we’ve grown in our understanding of how grief affects our lives.  Gabby says that being...

Memorial tattoos have become a popular way of remembering loved ones. Our guest today is Deborah Davidson, creator of The Tattoo Project.  Deborah has done some amazing research and work into how we express our grief through tattoo body art.  Tattoos have become more mainstream than ever. As a sociologist, Deborah has researched deeply into death and dying, bereavement and grief.  She had her own...