Thursday, May 28, 2009
What Are You Going to do About This? An Interdisciplinary Approach to Crisis Management
Gary Gardia
Gary has worked in the hospice field for over 25 years beginning as a volunteer. Over the years he has worked in many capacities such as program director for volunteers, social workers, bereavement, and education and has served as Vice President in his long time affiliation with Nathan Adelson Hospice in Las Vegas. He is a Certified Thanatologist (CT): Death, Dying and Bereavement through the Association for Death, Education and Counseling and holds a Master Degrees in Education and Social Work. He is currently working as a speaker/consultant for hospice programs nationally. In 1996 Gary has been honored with the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization's (NHPCO) "Heart of Hospice Award" for developing innovative programs to meet the needs of caregivers and the bereaved. For the past 7 years he has served in various leadership positions for NHPCO including the national representative for Volunteers and Volunteer Managers and the national representative for Social Workers. In 2002 Gary opened the Center for Compassionate Care in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Friday, May 29, 2006
Opening Plenary: "Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy: Finding Purpose and Meaning at End of Life"
Dr. William Breitbart
Dr. William Breitbart, is a psychiatrist whose expertise focuses on the psychiatric aspects of pain, symptom control, and palliative care in cancer and AIDS patients. Much of his early research focused on the neuropsychiatric problems of HIV-infected patients, including pain, fatigue, delirium and other symptoms that impact quality of life. As Dr. Breitbart's clinical experiences brought more and more attention to the terminally ill patients' desire for hastened death, he became interested in studying the psychological and psychosocial factors associated with this desire for death among the terminally ill population. Breitbart and his colleagues began to reframe the concept of despair at the end of life, expanding the concerns of palliative and supportive care beyond symptom management. In addition to constructs such as depression and anxiety, they found that factors such as hopelessness, loss of meaning, and decreased spiritual well-being contributed greatly to the dying patients' sense suffering. Dr. Breitbart's most recent research efforts involve the development of novel psychotherapeutic interventions, which he has named "Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy", aimed at sustaining meaning and improving spiritual well-being in the terminally ill.
