Springtime in upstate New York brings us together for HPCANYS 30th Annual Interdisciplinary Meeting and Conference. Once again, our program is designed to provide opportunities for networking, education, and thoughtful discussion about end-of-life care.

I am delighted to welcome Thomas Lynch as our Keynote Speaker. A Funeral Director and a poet, Thomas Lynch is the author of three collections of poems and three books of essays. A book of stories, Apparition & Late Fictions and a new collection of poems, Walking Papers, will be published this year.

His work has been the subject of two film documentaries. PBS frontline's The Undertaking, aired nationwide in 2007, won the 2008 Emmy Award for Arts and Culture Documentary. Cathal Black's film, Learning Gravity, produced for the BBC, was featured at the 2008 Telluride Film festival and the 6th Traverse City Film Festival in 2009 where it was awarded the Michigan Prize by Michael Moore.

Friday morning's plenary speaker, Malene Davis, will show you how to put into action the theme of our conference, "Mission, Vision, Reality." Malene's presentation, "Live to Serve Another Day," gives us a glimpse of how she became a leader in the Hospice and Palliative Care field. Malene is President and CEO of Capital Hospice, one of the first and largest nonprofit providers of hospice and palliative care services in the United States, serving more than 4,800 patients per year through six regional offices throughout the metropolitan Washington, DC area.

Malene was recognized for her work in advancing the hospice philosophy in West Virginia and for her work in the community. In 2001 she was selected as the West Virginia University School of Nursing Outstanding Alumnus of the Year. In 2006, she also received the first Hospice and Palliative Nurses Foundation project on Death in America Nursing Leadership Award in Palliative Care. Malene is past Chair of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization Board of Directors.

This year, we are offering thirty workshops covering topics such as pain and symptom management in hospice and palliative care, the challenges of underserved populations, and getting the best from your interdisciplinary team. Our Annual Meeting Committee has worked hard to ensure that there is something for everyone.

Exhibitors from across the country will be on hand to discuss their products and services. Join us for hors d'oeuvres at the close of Thursday's concurrent session at our Exhibitors' Cocktail Reception. Another opportunity to meet and network with the exhibitors is offered again at breakfast on Friday morning.

Another exciting feature of this year's conference is our 30th Anniversary Gala. You will be treated to an off-Broadway performance of 180 Days. In this performance, comedian Taren Sterry takes the audience on an intensely personal and surprisingly funny journey through her first six months as a hospice volunteer. Hoping to help patients find meaning at the end of life, through unexpected and humbling events, she discovers hidden qualities in herself that give purpose to her own life.

So after a full day of superior educational presentations, you can relax, enjoy the show, chat over dinner and bid on a wide variety of items in our live and silent auctions!

You will meet the HPCANYS staff who will be present to answer questions, provide directions and attend to all of your conference needs.

We look forward to seeing you May 13th and 14th, 2010 at the Albany Marriott Hotel for our 30th Annual Interdisciplinary Seminar and Meeting, "Mission, Vision, Reality...Celebrating 30 Years."

Kathy A. McMahon, President & CEO