[RECORDINGS] Spring 2025 Palliative Care Series
Session 1: Thursday, May 22, 2025
The Rocky Road of Goals of Care Conversations: Not “One and Done”
Presented by: Dr. Kelley Elwell, DNP, APRN, FNP-BC, Hospice & Palliative Nurse Practitioner, Central Vermont Home Health and Hospice and Eva Zivitz, MSN, RN, CHPN, Palliative Care Program Coordinator, Palliative Care Program, Rutland Regional Medical Center
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
- Identify at least three components of a goals of care conversation
- Recognize common barriers to communication about patient goals and values
Session 2: May 29, 2025
Slipping Through the Seams: Optimizing Transitions in Care Settings for People with Serious Illness
Presented by Clare O’Grady, DO, MPH, Palliative Care Physician & Site Lead of the Palliative Medicine Department at Porter Medical Center
Learning Objectives:
- Identify common difficulties that patients with serious illnesses endure in transitions between care settings
- Explore models that improve care coordination, communication, and patient outcomes during these transitions
- Foster a space for participants to learn from one another, sharing current practices and challenges observed in their locales
Session 3: June 10, 2025
I Don’t Want to Die Like That! Choosing to Stop Eating and Drinking Instead
Presented by Jonna Goulding, MD, Palliative Care Physician, Central Vermont Medical Center and Cindy Bruzzese, MPA, MSB, HEC-C, Executive Director & Clinical Ethicist, Vermont Ethics Network & Clinical Ethicist, UVM Medical Center and Pasty Fortney, CC, Palliative Care Chaplain, Central Vermont Medical Center
Learning Objectives:
- Discuss options with patients who are interested in hastening death in the face of degenerative disease, but are not eligible for Medical Aid in Dying (MAID)
- Distinguish voluntarily stopping eating and drinking (VSED) from stopping eating and drinking by advance directive (SED by AD)
- Feel more confident about supporting patients and their families who want more information about, or are seeking to utilize, VSED
- Appreciate the ethical, legal, and emotional/spiritual considerations surrounding VSED
Session 4: June 18, 2025
Stories about Medical Aid in Dying
Presented by: Diana Barnard, MD, Hospice and Palliative Care, Volunteer Associate Professor UVM Larner College of Medicine
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
- Describe the qualifications for Medical Aid in Dying
- Explore the Diversity of patient priorities and suffering at end of life
Session 5: June 25, 2025
Do No Harm: Navigating Pain, Opioids, and Risk in Serious Illness
Presented by: Stephen Berns, MD, FAAPM, Division Head, Hospice & Palliative Medicine UVMMC, Holly & Bob Miller Chair for Palliative Medicine and John Wax, MD, Hospice and Palliative Medicine Physician and Director of Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship Program
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
- Describe safe and appropriate pain management strategies in people with serious illness at risk for or with concurrent substance use disorder
- Distinguish substance use disorder from the under-treatment of pain in people with serious illness
- Define routine and universal risk assessment for substance use disorder when considering treatment with opioids
