Compassion In Action Archive

title 2024

Reframing Distress: Why Moral Injury Matters

Presented by:
  • Beth Lown MD, Chief Medical Officer of the Schwartz Center
  • Wendy Dean MD

For decades, interventions for clinician distress have been less effective than hoped. By expanding our understanding of the clinicians’ experience to include moral injury, we can create organizations with thriving practitioners who can offer better care for their patients. Join us for this special webinar, hosted by Schwartz Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Beth Lown, as we learn from Dr. Wendy Dean, CEO and co-founder of The Moral Injury of Healthcare. Dr. Dean is the author of “If I Betray These Words: Moral Injury In Medicine” and “Why It’s So Hard For Clinicians to Put Patients First,” and cohost of the “Moral Matters” and “43cc” podcasts. This conversation will be followed by Q&A.

Additional Resources

Toward a Healing Organization

Presented by:
  • Beth Lown MD, Chief Medical Officer of the Schwartz Center
  • Ken Epstein PhD, LCSW

Healthcare faces an existential crisis, which started before the COVID epidemic. The shift towards greater efficiency, productivity and profitability, combined with increasing pressures from payors, has created a gap between the moral foundation guiding the healing professions and the realities of academic, health and healing work.

There is a movement to reimagine organizational practices and culture as more equitable, compassionate, and collaborative. Join us for this webinar with Ken Epstein, PhD, LCSW, moderated by Schwartz Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Beth Lown. Ken works as a consultant helping individuals, couples, families, communities and organizations repair, heal and promote collaborative culture change and has practiced, taught and supervised for close to three decades. He will review the context of organizational culture, the importance of reflective practice, and the necessity of measuring our capacity to be a healing organization for the people who work in it, as well as the community we serve.

Additional Resources

title

Portraits of Compassion: A Conversation with the 2023 National Compassionate Caregivers of the Year

Presented by:
  • Beth Lown MD, Chief Medical Officer of the Schwartz Center

Please join us for a special celebration of the 2023 National Compassionate Caregivers of the Year®. This year marks the 24th anniversary of this distinguished award, a national recognition program that celebrates healthcare professionals who exemplify extraordinary compassion in caring for patients and families. We invite you to meet this year’s National Compassionate Caregivers of the Year, and to listen as they share personal stories of giving, receiving, and making possible compassionate patient and family care during an intimate panel discussion moderated by Schwartz Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Beth Lown.

The 2023 National Compassion Caregivers of the Year are:

  • Kristy Capps, BSN, RN, community RN case manager, Population Health SEWA, Providence St. Mary Medical Center, WA
  • Laura Harmon, MD, chair of the department of surgery, Boulder Community Health, CO
  • Kathryn Kirkland, MD, section chief and director, palliative medicine, Dartmouth Health, NH
  • Assumptah “Summie” Mwai, CHPNA, senior hospice aide, Care Dimensions Hospice, MA
  • Sonia Sutherland, MD, medical director, detention health, Contra Costa Health, CA
  • Lisa Thornsberry on behalf of the Complex Discharge Team, UK HealthCare, Good Samaritan Hospital, KY

Thank you to presenting sponsor CRICO for supporting the NCCY Award.

Supporting Mental Health and Preventing Health Worker Suicide

Presented by:
  • Beth Lown MD, Chief Medical Officer of the Schwartz Center
  • Christine Yu Moutier MD
  • Jennifer Mensik Kennedy PhD, MBA, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN
  • Judy Davidson DNP, RN, MCCM, FAAN

Challenging work conditions, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath put millions of health workers at risk for severe stress, burnout, depression, anxiety, substance use disorders, and suicidal behavior. Mental health stigma and fear of the impact of required treatment disclosure on licensure and credentialing inhibit health workers from getting the help they need. However, more is now known about suicide risk and prevention, and practical mental health support and risk reduction strategies are available.

In this webinar hosted by Schwartz Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Beth Lown, Judy Davidson, DNP, RN, MCCM, FAAN, nurse scientist at University of California San Diego Health and research scientist for the UC San Diego School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry, Jennifer Mensik Kennedy, PhD, MBA, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN, president of American Nurses Association, and Christine Yu Moutier, MD, chief medical officer of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention will discuss the current status of health worker mental health, what we know about suicide risk factors, how to approach a colleague at risk, and practical strategies, programs and toolkits you can implement in your organization.

Additional Resources

Challenges and Best Practices in Protecting the Healthcare Environment in Today’s Complex World

Presented by:
  • Beth Lown MD, Chief Medical Officer of the Schwartz Center
  • Bonnie Michelman CPP, CHPA
  • Jennifer Goba
  • Matthew Thomas

Workplace violence against healthcare workers has been increasing, threatening their physical and psychological safety and well-being. Fearing for one’s personal safety and experiencing traumatic stress from threats and violence degrades professional satisfaction and makes it difficult for healthcare workers to provide high-quality, compassionate care.

In this webinar hosted by Schwartz Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Beth Lown, Bonnie Michelman, CPP, CHPA, system vice president for police and security for Mass General Brigham, Jenn Goba, senior manager of workplace violence and investigations at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and Matt Thomas, training, development and communications specialist at MGH, share how their healthcare organization has proactively addressed and tried to prevent workplace violence, and how they respond when it occurs.

Additional Resources

How Healthcare Systems Are Tackling Health Inequities: Healthcare Anchor Network

Presented by:
  • Beth Lown MD, Chief Medical Officer of the Schwartz Center
  • David Zuckerman
  • Nathalie Rosado Ortiz

The complex social structures, economic systems, and policies that affect quality of life have a far greater impact on health than the care we provide inside the walls of our healthcare facilities. In this webinar hosted by Schwartz Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Beth LownDavid Zuckerman, president of Healthcare Anchor Network and Nathalie Rosado Ortiz, system manager of Anchor Mission and Community Engagement and Rush University System for Health, will discuss the impact of these social determinants and structural violence on health and how Healthcare Anchor Network evolved to address these conditions in collaboration with healthcare systems across the country. You’ll learn how this work made a difference for a Chicago community and healthcare system during the pandemic and beyond. We will explore practical approaches that you can use to promote health equity.

Building Trust in Complex Environments

Presented by:
  • Beth Lown MD, Chief Medical Officer of the Schwartz Center
  • Ron Carucci

Health workers long for organizational leaders they trust. Leaders who model the values they espouse, value and respect them as well as the patients and communities they serve, and who will work collaboratively to reduce barriers to compassionate, person-centered care. But today, lack of faith in societal institutions and leaders is fueling distrust, polarization and dissatisfaction.

Join us as Ron Carucci, leadership and organizational change consultant, describes his 15 years of research into what makes leaders trustworthy, conducted with a variety of organizations and businesses. He’ll share an expanded concept of honesty and why leaders must lead with the power of truth, justice and purpose to be trusted.

Additional Resources

At the Intersection of Human Trafficking and Healthcare

Presented by:
  • Amy Huynh LCSW, ACM
  • Beth Lown MD, Chief Medical Officer of the Schwartz Center
  • Karen Silva PhD, MSFN, MSN, PMHRN-BC
  • Tameia Marshall MBA
  • Tejal Patel Esq., CPHRM,

Human trafficking, whether for forced labor or sexual exploitation, is a human rights abuse and a crime. You might think it can’t happen here, in my community, but you would be wrong. Multiple studies have shown that 88% of victims had come into contact with the healthcare system while being trafficked. Healthcare workers have the opportunity to interact with victims and disrupt the cycle of abuse, but victims’ situations and their trauma frequently go unrecognized in our emergency departments, practices and clinics.  

In this webinar hosted by Schwartz Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Beth LownTejal Patel, Esq., CPHRM, associate risk management counsel at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, will moderate a discussion with members of their Human Trafficking Response Teams (a Schwartz Center 2022 Corman IMPACT Honors recipient): Karen Silva, PhD, MSFN, MSN, PMHRN-BC, behavioral health nurse, Amy Huynh, LCSW, ACM, a social worker in the cardiac surgery ICU, and Tameia Marshall, MBA, a patient access manager. We’ll learn about their work to educate and support healthcare workers so they in turn can recognize and offer trauma-informed care to victims of human trafficking. 

To schedule HT training from Cedars-Sinai’s HT Response Taskforce, please contact TJ directly at Tejal.Patel@cshs.org 

Additional Resources

title

Portraits of Compassion: A Conversation with the 2022 National Compassionate Caregivers of the Year

Presented by:
  • Beba Tata-Mbeng MDiv, MPH, BCC
  • Beth Lown MD, Chief Medical Officer of the Schwartz Center
  • Jason Telles NP
  • Peter DeBlieux MD
  • William “Donnie” Nelson BSN, RN, PHN, CPHN
  • Zahidee “Saidie” Rodriguez MD

Please join us for a special celebration of the 2022 National Compassionate Caregivers of the Year®. This year marks the 23rd anniversary of this distinguished award, a national recognition program that celebrates healthcare professionals who exemplify extraordinary compassion in caring for patients and families. We invite you to meet this year’s National Compassionate Caregivers of the Year, and to listen as they share personal stories of giving, receiving, and making possible compassionate patient and family care during an intimate panel discussion moderated by Schwartz Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Beth Lown. 

The 2022 National Compassion Caregivers of the Year are: 

  • Lindsay P. Carter, MD, Pediatric Hospitalist, Mass General for Children, Boston, MA 
  • Peter DeBlieux, MD, Chief Experience Officer and Emergency Physician, University Medical Center, New Orleans, LA 
  • William “Donnie” Nelson, BSN, RN, PHN, CPHN, Nurse Manager of Palliative Care, Saint Francis Memorial Hospital and St. Mary’s Medical Center, San Francisco, CA 
  • Zahidee “Saidie” Rodriguez, MD, Pediatric Cardiologist & Intensivist, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Atlanta, GA 
  • Beba Tata-Mbeng, MDiv, MPH, BCC, Manager of Spiritual Care, Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, FL 
  • Jason Telles, NP on behalf of the David James Hospice Unit, Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial Veterans’ Hospital, Bedford, VA 

Shame in Medicine

Presented by:
  • Beth Lown MD, Chief Medical Officer of the Schwartz Center
  • Emily Silverman MD
  • Tina McDowell RN
  • Uchenna C. Ewulonu MD
  • Will Bynum MD

Shame is part of healthcare, and yet it so often goes unnamed. For this very special Compassion in Action webinar, we’ve teamed up withThe Nocturnistsmedical storytelling organization to introduce their latest project, Shame in Medicine: The Lost Forest, to the Schwartz Center community.  

Why shame? It’s everywhere in healthcare – from training to clinician experience and beyond. And when we fail to address it, we can face a range of negative outcomes – burnout, depression, poor health, and unprofessional behavior, among others. But by naming the unnamed – by sharing our stories and moving towards mutual understanding – we can prevent such outcomes and begin to heal our medical culture.  

During this important conversation, Emily Silverman, MD, an internist and host/creator of The Nocturnists, will moderate a panel discussion with shame researcher Will Bynum, MD, associate professor of family medicine at Duke University School of Medicine, director of the Duke Family Medicine Residency Program and co-producer of The Nocturnists’ Shame in Medicine; Tina McDowell, RN, emergency medicine nurse leader and educator; and Uchenna C. Ewulonu, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and pediatric hospitalist and associate program director at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. They’ve courageously shared their stories of shame on The Nocturnists’ new 10-part documentary podcast series and will discuss them further with us during this session. We hope you will join us.  

This webinar is being offered in partnership with#FirstRespondersFirst, a fund of the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF), a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. 

Additional Resources

Expanding and Diversifying Pathways to Health Professional Education

Presented by:
  • Beth Lown MD, Chief Medical Officer of the Schwartz Center
  • Deborah Trautman PhD, RN, FAAN
  • Joan Y. Reede MD, MPH, MS, MBA
  • Teresa Y. Smith MD, MSEd
  • William McDade MD, PhD

Every healthcare profession is struggling right now to attract and retain the best talent – and as demand grows for care, so too does the need for a diverse population of healthcare providers that share the experiences of the communities they care for. Join us for an action-oriented discussion about how we can collaborate to address the social determinants of health professional education and increase diversity in both education and leadership. Teresa Y. Smith, MD, MSEd, associate dean of graduate medical education and DIO at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University will moderate this critical conversation with panelists Joan Y. Reede, MD, MPH, MS, MBA, dean for diversity and community partnership and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School; Deborah Trautman, PhD, RN, FAAN, president and chief executive officer of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN); and William McDade, MD, PhD, chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer at Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME).

Additional Resources

Organizational Strategies To Address Our Nation’s Nursing Crisis

Presented by:
  • Allison Nordberg PMP
  • Bernadette Mazurek Melnyk PhD, APRN-CNP, FAANP, FNAP, FAAN
  • Beth Lown MD, Chief Medical Officer of the Schwartz Center
  • Deb Zimmermann DNP, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN
  • Maria Joy Garcia-Dia DNP, RN, FAAN

Staffing shortages, unprecedented stress, and mounting burnout are just a few of the acute challenges facing the nursing workforce, all exacerbated by two-plus years of the pandemic. During this important panel discussion moderated by Gaurdia Banister, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN, executive director of the Institute for Patient Care and Director of the Yvonne L. Munn Center for Nursing Research at Massachusetts General Hospital, we’ll hear from four national nursing leaders: Mary Joy Garcia-Dia, DNP, RN, FAAN, president of the Philippine Nurses Association of America; Allison Nordberg, PMP, program director at the American Nurses Foundation; Bernadette Mazurek Melnyk, PhD, APRN-CNP, FAANP, FNAP, FAAN, vice president for Health Promotion, university chief wellness officer and dean, College of Nursing at The Ohio State University; and Deb Zimmerman, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN, CEO of the Daisy Foundation.  

During this webinar we discuss the impact of shortages and potential staffing solutions, how we can cultivate the psychological and physical safety our nurses need in the clinical workplace, how inclusion can support innovation and problem-solving, and why work-life balance matters for mental health and well-being. The discussion is followed by an interactive Q&A. 

Additional Resources

Compassionomics: The Case for Compassion

Presented by:
  • Beth Lown MD, Chief Medical Officer of the Schwartz Center
  • Stephen Trzeciak MD, MPH

Here at the Schwartz Center, we’re devoted to advancing compassion for all who give and receive care. But why does compassion really matter? In this Compassion in Action webinar, Dr. Stephen Trzeciak, co-author of Compassionomics: The Revolutionary Scientific Evidence That Caring Makes a Difference, will explain why compassion could be a “wonder drug” for the 21st century, and for the challenges facing today’s healthcare leaders. In conversation with Schwartz Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Beth Lown, Dr. Trzeciak will share evidence that shows the vast benefits of compassion in healthcare: for patients, healthcare organizations, and the healthcare workforce.  

Stephen W. Trzeciak, MD, MPH, is Chairman and Chief in the Department of Medicine and Medical Director of the Adult Health Institute at Cooper University Health Care. He is also a Professor of Medicine at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University.  

Fostering Organizational Well-being: The Role of the Chief Wellness Officer

Presented by:
  • Beth Lown MD, Chief Medical Officer of the Schwartz Center
  • Christine Hein MD
  • Jonathan Ripp MD, MPH
  • Mariah Quinn MD, MPH
  • Stephen Keithahn MD

After two years in crisis, many healthcare leaders are finally coming up for air and taking proactive steps towards organizational well-being — with chief wellness officers leading the charge.  

 

During this important panel discussion, moderated by Jonathan Ripp, MD, MPH, chief wellness officer of the Mount Sinai Health System and Icahn School of Medicine and co-founder of CHARM, we’ll hear from three chief wellness officers at academic medical centers across the U.S.: Christine Hein, MD, Maine Medical Center; Stephen Keithahn, MD, University of Missouri School of Medicine and University of Missouri Health Center; and Mariah Quinn, MD, MPH, UWHealth and University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.  

 

Our panelists will talk about who they are, what they do, their vision for healthcare workforce well-being, and why the time is now for advocacy and action. They’ll also share practical tips for advancing well-being work at your organization. The discussion will be followed by a Q&A.  

Additional Resources

Five Evidence-Based Actions Leaders Can Take Now to Support the Healthcare Workforce

Presented by:
  • Beth Lown MD, Chief Medical Officer of the Schwartz Center
  • Corey Feist JD, MBA
  • Ken Cochran DSc, RN, FACHE
  • Robyn Begley DNP, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN
  • Tina Shah MD, MPH

As 2022 arrived, we found ourselves two years into a pandemic that has taken a lasting toll on the workforce and on the systems we rely upon to keep our communities safe and healthy. 

In response, a group of experts in collaboration with the National Academy of Medicine and All In: Wellbeing First For Healthcare, convened to answer the question on every healthcare leader’s mind – “What can we do NOW to support our workforce?” – and generated five recommendations for action: The 2022 Healthcare Workforce Rescue Package.

Join us for this urgent panel discussion with members of this group – Corey Feist, JD, MBA, President and Co-Founder, Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation; Robyn Begley, DNP, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN, CEO of the American Organization for Nursing Leadership and CNO and SVP for Workforce of the American Hospital Association; and Tina Shah, MD, MPH, Co-Chair and Principal, TNT Health Enterprises – moderated by the Schwartz Center’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Beth Lown. We’ll delve into the five recommendations and take a look at what they mean for leaders, clinicians and other healthcare workers trying to make a meaningful difference in the way we work in healthcare, and how we can sustain ourselves while continuing to care with compassion for our patients.

title

Portraits of Compassion: A Conversation with the 2021 National Compassionate Caregivers of the Year

Presented by:
  • Beth Lown MD, Chief Medical Officer of the Schwartz Center
  • Jose Morales MD, MPH
  • Nora Kramer RN, MS, CNRN
  • Orlanda Mackie MD
  • Sidney Zisook MD
  • Sparkles Ransom MSW, LCSW, C-ASWCM, C-SWHC
  • Stephanie Adler Yuan
  • Susan Craft
  • Tamara Vesel MD

Colliding Emotions in Clinical Medicine: The Dialectic of Anger and Compassion

Presented by:
  • Christine Runyan, PhD

Mixed feelings are not new territory for clinicians: many of us have learned to care with compassion for our patients, whatever challenges and choices they present us with. However, even the most compassionate clinicians are struggling now with the state of our healthcare system and the demands it places on staff being called to care for very sick people who have declined vaccination for COVID-19. In this webinar, clinical health psychologist Dr. Christine Runyan will explore the opposing internal experiences of anger and compassion that so many clinicians are grappling with today, asking: What is the relationship between these emotions? What should we do when anger enters clinical practice? And what do clinicians need to know about managing the emotions that attend the real and complex challenges of the moment?

Christine Runyan, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, co-founder of Tend Health, and a mindfulness teacher at the UMass Memorial Center for Mindfulness.

Why Social Support Matters for Frontline Caregivers Right Now

Presented by:
  • Beth Lown MD, Chief Medical Officer of the Schwartz Center

Dr. Beth Lown, MD, Chief Medical Officer of the Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare, will discuss the current state of evidence about what makes interventions effective in supporting caregivers’ mental health during pandemics and other causes of mass trauma. We’ll consider a spectrum of facilitators and barriers from intervention characteristics to individual and organizational factors that make a difference, and some examples you can consider for your organization. 

Additional Resources

Pulling Together, Breaking Apart: Covid and the Power of Community

Presented by:
  • Beth Lown MD, Chief Medical Officer of the Schwartz Center
  • Nicholas A. Christakis, MD, PhD, MPH

Please join Schwartz Center Chief Medical Officer Beth Lown, MD, for a conversation with Nicholas Christakis, MD, PhD, MPH. Dr. Christakis is the Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science at Yale University, Fellow of the National Academy of Medicine, bestselling author, physician, sociologist, public health expert and social network scientist. He is the author of many books including Apollo’s Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live (2020) and Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society (2019). During this session, we will explore how, despite a human history replete with violence and polarization, we cannot escape our social blueprint for goodness. Dr. Christakis will discuss how the evolution of humankind has given us a suite of beneficial social features, including our capacity for love, friendship, cooperation, and learning – all fundamental to our collective sense of purpose and compassion. 

When Healthcare “Heroes” Need Help: Destigmatizing Mental Illness in the Healthcare Workforce

Presented by:
  • Beth Lown MD, Chief Medical Officer of the Schwartz Center
  • Chris Hayes
  • Corey Feist JD, MBA
  • Jennifer Feist
  • Jeremy Segall
  • Michelle Williams

The COVID-19 pandemic has added an unprecedented layer of stress and trauma to the many challenges that healthcare workers have long faced. As we turn our attention to how organizations and individuals can now move toward recovery, it’s imperative that healthcare leaders, educators, and policymakers take action to cultivate a sustainable, supported healthcare workforce. After all: Caregivers are humans before they are heroes, and when they are suffering, they too need care.

 

This special panel discussion moderated by MSNBC’s Chris Hayes with Corey and Jennifer Feist of the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation; Jeremy Segall, Chief Wellness Officer of NYC Health + Hospitals; Dean Michelle Williams of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; and Schwartz Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Beth Lown explored the ways in which the pandemic has exacerbated a mental-health crisis for our healthcare workforce, and steps we can take to prevent, assess, and address the significant mental and behavioral health consequences of caregiving.

 

This event is offered in partnership with #FirstRespondersFirst, an initiative of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Thrive Global, and the CAA Foundation, takes a whole human approach to addressing the needs of our frontline workers in order to support their ability to serve on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic. #FirstRespondersFirst’s fundraising call to action helps provide essential supplies, protective equipment, accommodations, child care, food, and critical mental health support and resources to this demographically and socially diverse workforce, ranging from minimum-wage hourly workers in home-care settings to social workers, nurses, physicians, and beyond, through its implementing collaborators Americares, Bright Horizons, CORE Response, Direct Relief, Give An Hour, Global Health Corps, Hispanic Federation, IHG Hotels & Resorts, InnerHour, International Rescue Committee, Marriott International, National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), National Black Nurses Association, National Domestic Workers Alliance, Omada Health, Osmosis, Pivot, The Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare, World Central Kitchen, and You Okay, Doc?. Powered by Thrive Global’s behavior change platform, #FirstRespondersFirst also provides access to Harvard Chan School’s evidence-based content, specifically tailored to this critical workforce, to help improve the physical and mental well-being of healthcare workers.

title

Grief, Loss and Mourning in the Time of COVID

Presented by:
  • Candi K. Cann
  • Michael Hebb
  • Rana Awdish MD
  • Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison MFA, LMSW, DMIN

COVID has upended the ways in which we understand what it means to grieve and to mourn. During this webinar, we invite you to join us in reflecting on our experiences of grief, loss and mourning in the time of COVID, as EOL founder Michael Hebb moderates a conversation with Dr. Rana Awdish, best-selling author and critical-care physician at Henry Ford Hospital; Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison, MFA, LMSW, DMIN, co-founder of the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care and a Jungian psychotherapist; and Dr. Candi K. Cann, thanatologist and associate professor of Baylor University.

Additional Resources

Managing Our Fears and Stress: Strategies to Cultivate Emotional Agility

Presented by:
  • Susan David PhD

Join us for a conversation with Susan David, PhD, renowned psychologist, TED speaker, and expert on emotions, as she discusses how to cultivate “Emotional Agility” in the context of the rapidly changing landscape of the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. David draws on her twenty-plus years of research to help listeners gain insight into how to cultivate emotional agility within oneself and within organizations in stressful times.

Additional Resources

We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Heal: Processing Grief through the Written Word

Presented by:
  • Sunita Puri MD

Grief and loss are a part of the human experience, particularly so in medicine, where we witness both life-altering moments and death on a daily basis. Many of us were socialized to believe we need to grin and bear it, to move on with our practice and our lives without understanding and engaging with how grief and loss affect us as people and practitioners. Amid COVID-19, grief has become particularly pronounced as families are separated from their hospitalized loved ones, we are often engaging with patients through a Zoom screen, and many of our patients are dying, often alone. How might the reading and writing of stories help us to shine a light on the invisible suffering many of us bear, particularly these days? In this session, Sunita Puri, MD, discusses how writers have explored the territory of grief and loss in healing ways, and how those of us working with patients on the front line might do the same. Following the presentation, Schwartz Center Chief Medical Officer Beth Lown, MD, moderates a brief Q&A.

Additional Resources

Communication in the Age of COVID

Presented by:
  • Anthony Back MD

The COVID-19 pandemic presents clinicians with communication challenges most have never faced before. Things like conducting goals-of-care conversations over Zoom or walking a family member through a last goodbye over the phone are happening daily. In this webinar, Anthony Back, MD, talks about clinical wisdom gained in Seattle and New York City, and the COVID-Ready Communication Playbook now available at vitaltalk.org.

Additional Resources

Caring with Compassion: Supporting Patients and Families in a Crisis

Presented by:
  • Patricia Watson PhD
  • Richard Westphal PhD RN

Patricia Watson, PhD, and Richard Westphal, PhD, RN, discuss specific strategies healthcare professionals can use to address the five essential human needs that support recovery from adversity and stress for patients and families. They also explain how to use the Stress First Aid framework to assess for stress injury, discuss patient needs and make referrals to other supports.

Additional Resources

Managing Traumatic Stress: Evidence-Based Guidance for Organizational Leaders

Presented by:
  • Neil Greenberg MD FRCPsych

Neil Greenberg, MD, FRCPsych, Professor of Defense Mental Health, King’s College London, and international expert on trauma risk management and prevention shares what healthcare organizations need to know and do to manage traumatic stress. Dr. Greenberg draws on his more than 23 years of deployment as a psychiatrist and researcher to many hostile environments including Afghanistan and Iraq. Following Dr. Greenberg’s presentation, Schwartz Center Chief Medical Officer Beth Lown hosts a brief Q&A.

Additional Resources

Leading with Compassion: Supporting Healthcare Workers in a Crisis

Presented by:
  • Patricia Watson PhD
  • Richard Westphal PhD RN

Schwartz Center Chief Medical Officer Beth Lown, MD, joins Patricia Watson, PhD, of the National Center for PTSD, and Richard Westphal, PhD, RN, of the UVA School of Nursing, for a conversation about what healthcare leaders can do to support their teams during the COVID-19 crisis.

Additional Resources

Caring for Yourself & Others During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Managing Healthcare Workers’ Stress

Presented by:
  • Patricia Watson PhD

Patricia Watson, PhD, of the National Center for PTSD discusses ways that healthcare workers can manage stress — theirs and others’ — as we face the ever-changing circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Additional Resources

Recognition & Gratitude: Why It Matters to Patients, Families & Healthcare

Presented by:
  • Dr. Cynthia Sweeney
  • Jodie McGinley

The DAISY Foundation is known the world over for its hospital-based programs that recognize compassion and excellence in nursing. During this webinar, Dr. Cynthia Sweeney, Vice President for Nursing at The DAISY Foundation will explain exactly why meaningful recognition and gratitude matter so much to families and caregivers, and share the results of a recent study that examined this very question. She’ll be joined by Jodie McGinley, whose own journey of loss and gratitude informs her role as Parent on Staff at Arkansas Children’s Hospital. Together they will explore how gratitude positively impacts individuals as well as healthcare delivery, and highlight the value proposition of saying “thank you.” Following their presentation, Cindy and Jodie will be joined in conversation by Schwartz Center Chief Medical Officer Dr. Beth Lown.

Additional Resources

title

Wellness, Agency, and Sanity: How to Cultivate Community in Your Clinics

Presented by:
  • Elizabeth Métraux

During this webinar, Elizabeth Métraux, CEO, Women Writers in Medicine will explore insights gleaned from years studying provider wellness, leaving attendees with concrete models and methods for fostering a sense of community among colleagues that has the power to mitigate burnout, make meaning, and compel change. Following her presentation, Ms. Metraux will be joined in conversation by Schwartz Center CMO Dr. Beth Lown.

Additional Resources

What Is Race & Why Does It Matter? Implicit Bias in Primary Care Medicine

Presented by:
  • Juliette Blount

As a Duke-Johnson & Johnson Nurse Leadership Fellow, speaker Juliette Blount, MSN, NP, sought to unpack the intersection of race and healthcare by exploring how race affects the care we provide, patients’ perceptions and experiences, and, ultimately, health outcomes. During this webinar, Ms. Blount will invite participants to think hard and deeply about our individual identities and how they inform our relationships of care. We’ll explore definitions of race, ethnicity, and culture; interrogate assumptions about racism and implicit bias; and delve into how social determinants inform our understanding of health and wellness. Following her presentation, Ms. Blount will be joined in conversation by Schwartz Center CMO Dr. Beth Lown.

 

Additional Resources

What’s Trust Have to Do with Compassion?

Presented by:
  • Daniel Wolfson MHSA

As EVP & COO of the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM) Foundation, Daniel Wolfson leads the Choosing Wisely® campaign, a vast multi-year effort to promote conversations between clinicians and patients about how to avoid care that may be unnecessary and could cause harm. Such conversations, and such care, rely on a relationship of trust between patient and clinician. During this webinar, we’ll hear from Mr. Wolfson about how and why the ABIM Foundation came to lead this effort, explore the relationship between trust and compassion, and consider ways to build and rebuild trust in healthcare. After his presentation, Mr. Wolfson will be joined in conversation by Schwartz Center CMO Beth Lown, MD.

Additional Resources

The Power of Patient Perspectives

Presented by:
  • Greg Makoul PhD, MS
Additional Resources

title

Creating A Culture of Caring

Presented by:
  • Rana Awdish MD
Additional Resources

title

A Culture of Safety is a Culture of Compassion

Presented by:
  • Patricia A. McGaffigan RN, MS, CPPS, chief operating officer and senior vice president of program strategy at the National Patient Safety Foundation

At the heart of healthcare is our purpose and moral duty to provide the highest quality, safest and most compassionate care to all of our patients, families and colleagues. Yet so often, our best intentions to ensure compassionate care are thwarted by many reasons – some pernicious, some explicit – but most of which relate to macro- and microsystems that lack a full commitment to a culture of safety as not only our priority, but our purpose. This presentation will illuminate several of the root causes and challenges to creating and sustaining a culture of safety, as well as the importance of a total systems approach to safety that is pre-conditional for compassionate care. Designed for all audiences (including healthcare professionals, executives, patient and family members, patient and family advocates and experience professionals, and others), this webinar will provide participants with meaningful recommendations and resources to accelerate and sustain a culture of safety and optimize compassionate care.

In this presentation, Patricia teaches participants how to characterize the relationship between a culture of safety, patient and workforce safety and compassionate care, identify at least three detractors and three critical success factors that are related to a culture of safety and finally, apply at least one essential recommendation to their patient safety and workforce safety activities or programs that may optimize compassionate care in their organization.

Additional Resources

Awakening Compassion in the Social Architecture of Health Care Organizations

Presented by:
  • Monica C. Worline PhD, CEO of Enlivenwork, Research Scientist at Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research, Education and Executive Director of CompassionLab

This webinar will inspire ideas for awakening compassion at the organizational and system levels in health care. While more and more evidence mounts that compassion matters for people doing the work of providing health care—it increases safety, promotes learning, prevents burnout, and fosters collaboration—our organizations and systems are often poorly set up to make compassion part of our everyday working lives. Monica Worline and Jane Dutton, authors of the new book Awakening Compassion at Work, draw from over 15 years of research on compassion in organizations to offer an accessible and practical framework for understanding how to awaken compassion across organizations and systems in a more competent and sustainable fashion. They have developed a research-grounded framework they refer to as the “social architecture” of organizations and they show how tapping into this social architecture can inspire new ways of bringing compassion into workplaces. Going beyond just culture and values, this webinar will invite you to consider your organization’s network ties, role definitions, and routines as keys to fostering more compassion. Monica will introduce the social architecture framework and illustrate it with stories and examples of how it can be used in any organization to inspire change. We will conclude with a blueprint of generative questions and ideas for awakening compassion by understanding and using the social architecture your system.

Learning Objectives
At the end of this webinar, participants will be able to:

  • Define the social architecture of an organization and explain its relevance to promoting compassion in work environments
  • Articulate an evidence-based case for focusing on compassion at the organization and system level in health care
  • Engage in creative and generative conversations that foster awakening compassion in organizations beyond a focus on culture and values to include change in an organizations network structures, role definitions and role crafting, and routines
Additional Resources

Compassion Integration: Connecting Hearts and Minds with Action

Presented by:
  • Becca Hawkins MSN, ARNP, director of compassionate care at Providence St. Joseph Health, nurse practitioner with a specialty in oncology, hospice and palliative care
  • Mark Rosenberg MD, FACP, director of compassionate care at Providence St. Joseph Health, internist and faculty member at the Internal Medicine Residency program at Providence Portland Medical Center

This webinar will describe the process that Providence St. Joseph Health has undertaken toward embedding compassion in the culture of the organization. Rebecca and Dr. Rosenberg will take you through their compassion journey, articulating successes and barriers to this work. They will describe how a message integrating suffering, compassion and burnout resonated with leadership and caregivers. In addition, they will demonstrate how creating collaboration and synergy among key partners facilitated the incorporation of compassion into clinical services, quality, high reliability and several work strands of human resources. Finally, they will include specific examples of compassion innovations that have been particularly impactful.

In this presentation, Becca and Dr. Rosenberg describe key concepts connecting suffering, compassion and burnout, discuss the integration and collaboration process for embedding compassion in a system and finally, adapt compassion innovations to their own healthcare system’s needs.

Additional Resources

Connecting to Care: Promoting Compassion through Staff Self-Discovery and Engagement

Presented by:
  • Harris Baden MD, professor & chief of Pediatric Cardiac Critical Care at Seattle Children’s and the University of Washington School of Medicine

Learn about how one of the country’s leading children’s hospitals has prioritized compassionate, collaborative care to enhance the experience of care for patients and families by enriching the experience of care for staff. The journey includes the initial program developed by doctors, for doctors, to optimize connections with patients and families, which then evolved into an institution-wide effort to promote and support a culture of compassion for patients, families and staff. Through a process called facilitated self-discovery, Dr. Baden and his team have worked to promote presence and empathy in all interactions, with a belief that this increases fulfillment and resiliency and thereby mitigates burnout. The process requires genuine commitment from hospital leadership that integrates well with their existing commitments to family-centered care, continuous improvement (Lean), safety (high-reliability) and staff well-being.

In this presentation, Dr. Baden teaches participants how to recognize the value of focusing on staff satisfaction and well-being to promote a culture of compassion in their organization and how to understand the importance of engaging staff through facilitated self-discovery to develop effective and sustainable strategies and solutions.

Additional Resources

Creating a Culture of Compassion Using Appreciative Inquiry

Presented by:
  • Harry (Bud) Issacson MD, FACP
  • Richard Frankel PhD

Richard Frankel is professor of Medicine and Geriatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine(IUSM) and a staff member in the Education institute of Cleveland Clinic. Dr. Frankel is a medical educator and health services researcher who has spent the past 35 years focusing on strategies to improve communication and relationships between individual doctors and patients and more recently in teams and organizations. He has consulted to a number of large medical organizations on ways to transform their culture based on their positive accomplishments. He is a member of the Cleveland Clinic Professionalism Council and at IUSM leads the ASPIRE (Advanced Scholars Program for Internists in Research and Education).

Harry (Bud) Isaacson, MD, FACP is the Assistant Dean for Clinical Education and Associate Professor of Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine (CCLCM). He currently oversees all clinical training for CCLCM and co-directs the “Foundations of Clinical Medicine Course”. In addition he serves Chair of the Professionalism Council and a member of the Board of Governors at Cleveland Clinic . He helped develop and lead a new Cleveland Clinic on-boarding program in 2011 which includes the “To Act as a Unit” series on professionalism Dr. Isaacson is currently leading an effort to enhance the Annual Professional Review (APR) at Cleveland Clinic using Appreciative Inquiry. He has led the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation’s Roundtable on Professionalism for 5 years and is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians.

Service economies, like healthcare, are relationship-based and sensitive to the local cultural context in which they operate. In the 1980’s, David Cooperrider, a professor at Case Western University and a student of organizational behavior, noted that when organizations focused on what they were doing well, and how to get more of it, the quality of both goods and services improved. Dubbed “Appreciative Inquiry” (AI), this positive approach to organizational culture has grown exponentially and there is evidence to show that it is good for both employees and the bottom line.

In this webinar, we will review the history of AI and focus especially on the use of appreciative story telling as an organizational culture change strategy. We will also illustrate some simple techniques for bringing AI to participants’ organizations with optimal chances for success.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the webinar, participants will be able to:

  • Describe the difference between production- and relationship based organizational culture
  • Understand the role and power of story-telling in organizational work life
  • Immediately implement one or more appreciative practices in their workplace

Resilience on the Front Lines of Care: Organizational Strategies to Foster Compassion and Sustain Resilience in the Face of Trauma and Emotional Suffering

Presented by:
  • Micheline St-Hilaire MBA, MSc, Director of Strategic Initiatives and Innovation with the Catholic Health Corporation of Manitoba

Micheline St-Hilaire teaches Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, Mindful Self Compassion, Compassion Cultivation Training and a variety of tailor-made mindfulness-based programs. As director of strategic initiatives and innovation with the Catholic Health Corporation of Manitoba, she consults for a wide range of organizations to foster resilience in support of personal, interpersonal and organizational well-being. Micheline co-founded the Compassion Project in 2010, an organizational change and development process aimed at co-creating the conditions for compassion to flourish in health and human service.

The Compassion Project, a contemporary contemplative pathway designed as an initial step to organizational change and development, will be presented. It serves as an effort to begin to re-found the heart of health and human service and nurture resilience and healing intra-personally, interpersonally, and organizationally.

Learning Objectives
At the end of this webinar, participants will be able to:

  • Explore sources of depletion and learning in health and human service
  • Identify ways to co-create the conditions for meaning, purpose and service to flourish in our workplaces and beyond
  • Explore the relationship between personal, interpersonal and organizational health and wellness
Additional Resources

title

Active Listening: Lost Art or Learnable Skill?

Presented by:
  • Abraham Fuks MD, professor, Department of Medicine, Pathology and Oncology, McGill University

Patients continually indicate that their ideal clinician is one who listens. At the same time, the complaint that “doctors do not listen” is ubiquitous. This webinar explores this apparent paradox by addressing what listening actually is in clinical settings, its importance and impact and whether listening can be taught and learned.

During this webinar, Dr. Fuks teaches us what listening is in clinical settings and its function in clinical interactions, as well as why listening is the foundation of the clinical method. He also explains the different types of “deafness” found among caregivers and their causes. Finally, he instructs us how to teach clinical listening skills.

Additional Resources

Compassionate Care Across Cultures and Languages: Finding Common Ground

Presented by:
  • Alexander R. Green MD, MPH, senior scientist at The Disparities Solutions Center at Massachusetts General Hospital, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School

Providing care to patients whose cultures and languages are different from our own can be difficult. Patients come with different beliefs, values and styles of communication. Some patients distrust the health care system or health care providers – attitudes which they may assert strongly, or keep hidden. Language barriers add another layer of potential misunderstanding. This webinar presents an overview of cross-cultural issues in health care and the role of empathy and compassion in addressing them. We explore case studies and reflect on effective approaches to providing compassionate, person-centered care to patients of all cultural backgrounds.

During this webinar, Dr. Green allows us to reflect on the role of empathy in cross-cultural care and understand the types of cross-cultural issues that can be a challenge to empathic care. Finally, he describes how we can improve health care providers’ communication and trust-building skills in diverse populations.

Additional Resources

Conversations That Count: Improving Care for Patients with Serious Illness Through Engagement of Providers and Patients

Presented by:
  • Eliza "Pippa" Schulman DO, MPH, primary care physician at Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, Atrius Health , and instructor in the Department of Population Medicine at Harvard Medical School

This presentation tells an engaging story of discovery, occasional failure and growing success in improving care for patients with advancing serious illness while achieving triple aim improvement. Dr. Shulman and her colleagues’ strategy combines data, education and workflow optimization to dramatically improve advance care planning. In order to take the next step and engage providers, patients and families in difficult conversations, Dr. Shulman and her colleagues teamed up with the Serious Illness Conversation Project to provide a structured tool and coaching for their teams to push their organization closer to providing goal-concordant care for their patients with serious illnesses. Their results are measurable and dramatic, and while they still have a long way to go, they are seeing a change in their practice that goes beyond metrics.

During this webinar, Dr. Schulman allows participants to identify the importance of conversation as part of comprehensive advance care planning and how challenging this can be for providers. She also allows participants to understand the need for a multifaceted approach to education and training of primary care teams and the importance of a team-based approach, with diversity of skills, for advance care planning.

Conversations Without Words: Using Nonverbal Communication to Improve the Patient-Caregiver Relationship

Presented by:
  • Judith A. Hall PhD, university distinguished professor of psychology, Northeastern University

How a clinician behaves through nonverbal signals and style has an impact on patients and is considered an important component of patient-centeredness. Similarly, the clinician’s skills in accurately perceiving the patient (for example, the patient’s emotions, health experiences, needs, expectations or personality) are important for diagnosis, decision making and creating a wholesome relationship. Nonverbal skills can be improved through practice, insight and training interventions.

During this webinar, Judith discusses the importance of nonverbal communication in clinical and personal interactions, and reviews the supporting research evidence from social psychology and medicine. Tips from this webinar can be used for improving interpersonal perception skills in clinical situations.

Additional Resources

Cultivating Compassion and Avoiding Burnout

Presented by:
  • Sharon Salzberg meditation teacher and New York Times best-selling author

Life is constantly changing. And life in health care is changing at an unprecedented pace. Sharon Salzberg, meditation teacher and renowned author, teaches us that in the midst of such change, there is not only uncertainty but also endless possibility and movement. To the question, “Can compassion be learned?” she responds with a resounding, “Yes!” Sometimes, all it takes is truly paying attention to the people around us. By paying attention to our experiences with sensitivity, we open our minds and our hearts, and understand how our actions affect others.

During this webinar, Sharon teaches us balanced ways of paying attention as a gateway to compassion. She explains the distinctions between empathy and compassion and why compassion for self and others is important in preventing burnout. Finally, she invites participants to experience a brief, secular compassion meditation as a method of transforming our worldview into one that acknowledges our fundamental connectedness.

Additional Resources

Listening for What Matters: Lessons about Caring from Concealed Recordings of Medical Encounters

Presented by:
  • Saul J. Weiner MD, deputy director of the VA Center of Innovation for Complex Chronic Healthcare, and a professor of medicine, pediatrics and medical education at the University of Illinois at Chicago

Perhaps the most impactful approach to caring is to first recognize and ask about clues that patients are struggling to take care of their health, and then to adapt care to their particular needs and circumstances. For over a decade, Dr. Weiner’s research team has explored this two-step process, which they term “contextualizing care.”

In the first phase of their research, they trained a team of actors as unannounced standardized patients who would see a physician and indicate that personal struggles were undermining their health care. In the second phase they invited real patients with complex chronic conditions to audio record their visits. Encounters were sorted according to whether the care plan was contextualized, and then patients were followed for up to nine months. When clinicians made the effort to contextualize care, patients had better healthcare outcomes and there was less overuse and misuse of medical services. Remarkably, contextualizing care didn’t lengthen the visit. Dr. Weiner extended the research to include nursing, pharmacists and front desk clerks. During this webinar, he describes evidence that shows that listening, asking purpose-driven questions and adapting care plans to meet patients’ needs really does matter.

During this webinar, Dr. Weiner helps participants to describe the essential role of patient context in planning appropriate care, define “contextualized care” and its antonym “contextual error” and outline the implications for healthcare outcomes and cost of attending to patient context during the medical encounter.

Additional Resources

Maximizing the Power of Relationships: Taking Care of Ourselves and Others

Presented by:
  • Beth Lown MD, Chief Medical Officer of the Schwartz Center

Want to learn more about how to care for your patients and their families while taking care of yourself? View Dr. Beth Lown’s webinar, the first in our monthly webinar series on the concepts and skills you need to thrive in today’s health care environment.

Dr. Lown will introduce a framework of essential skills that put compassion and collaboration into practice and help you relate to patients, families and your coworkers more effectively. She’ll discuss some of the exciting new research on compassion, which demonstrates that we can learn to improve these essential skills, and she’ll talk about how compassion can help prevent burnout.

It would be beneficial to watch this webinar for context before watching the others in this series. Each monthly webinar will highlight one of the skills introduced in this session.

Additional Resources

Predictors for Compassionate Care

Presented by:
  • Colleen F. Manning MA, director of research at Goodman Research Group, Inc

This presentation presents the results of an independent study (commissioned by the Schwartz Center) of the predictors of compassionate care, including attendance at Schwartz Rounds™.

In each of three sites, an online survey was conducted of all caregivers who were invited to attend Schwartz Rounds, whether they attended or not. The survey included questions about caregivers’ perceptions of success in providing compassionate care, teamwork related to compassionate care, the hospital’s support of compassionate caregiving and demographic information.

During this webinar, Colleen helps participants describe the Schwartz Center Compassionate Care Scale (SCCCS), a tool for measuring compassionate care, the predictors of compassionate healthcare and finally, describe what caregivers need to provide more compassionate healthcare.

Additional Resources

Sustainable Compassion for Health Professionals

Presented by:
  • Brooke D. Lavelle PhD, co-founder of the Courage of Care Coalition and education consultant to the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley

Sustainable Compassion Training (SCT) is a method designed to empower people who work in all areas of care and service. SCT is designed to help people realize a power of unconditional care from within that is deeply healing and sustaining, that makes them more fully present to self and others, and that empowers a strong, active compassion for persons that is not subject to empathy fatigue and burnout. In this webinar, Dr. Lavelle explores methods for cultivating more sustainable care and compassion. She also considers systemic and organizational conditions that impede compassion and explores ways of creating the conditions necessary to support and sustain compassionate care for all.

During this webinar, Dr. Lavelle helps participants understand the importance of receiving care, self care and extending care for avoiding empathy fatigue and burnout, as well as obstacles to compassion and care at the individual and systems level. Dr. Lavelle also allow participants to apply tools for enhancing compassion and care in daily life and in the workplace.

Additional Resources

The Alchemy of Empathy and Compassion: Transforming Stress into Meaning at Work

Presented by:
  • Eve Ekman PhD, MSW, postdoctoral student, Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, University of California San Francisco

Empathy has the potential to be a catalyst for delivering truly individualized quality patient care, generating feelings of meaning in work for providers and for instigating sympathetic distress leading to stress and burnout. This talk navigates through the contemporary research to help us understand the phenomenon of the empathic connection from the fields of psychology (humanistic, social, health and contemplative), neuroscience and medical education in order to consider how, where and when to intervene to support our providers.

During this webinar, Eve helps us to develop a scientific understanding of emotion and burnout and learn about mapping an emotion episode. She also describes emotion regulation strategies and investigates personal motivation and meaning in work.

Additional Resources

When Emotion Fills the Room: How to Use Empathic Statements to Move a Conversation Forward

Presented by:
  • Katherine Aragon MD, director of palliative medicine at Mount Auburn Hospital

Goals-of-care conversations are filled with emotion. Clinicians can often feel at a road block when they encounter highly emotional conversations. Patients and families may not be able to process medical information or make decisions when they are overwhelmed by emotion. Our presence, support and empathy are powerful sources of strength and comfort. By responding to emotions, we build trust and can move to a place of decision making. During this session, Dr. Aragon will provide a framework for using empathy in a goals-of-care conversation. We will review how to respond to emotion and present examples of how empathic statements can move a goals-of-care conversation forward. Finally, we will discuss scenarios when empathic statements may not facilitate a conversation as expected.

During this webinar, Dr. Aragon reviews the role of empathy when discussing goals of care, explores the use of empathic statements to help facilitate transitions in care and discusses how to modulate our responses when empathic statements are not moving a conversation forward.

Additional Resources

title

Compassionate Healthcare: Supporting Patients, Supporting Caregivers, Mitigating Risks

Presented by:
  • Beth Lown MD, Chief Medical Officer of the Schwartz Center

Compassionate care is critical but often an underutilized component in improving patient outcomes and reducing professional liability exposures. At its core, it means treating patients in a holistic manner, rather than focusing only upon patient illness. A growing body of research demonstrates that patient-centered care is essential to quality healthcare and has been associated with improved health outcomes, increased patient satisfaction, better adherence to treatment recommendations and fewer medical errors and malpractice claims.

Additional Resources

Bridging Difference and Power with RESPECT: A Relational Approach to Patients, Supervisees, and Teams

Presented by:
  • Carol Mostow LICSW, Assistant Professor of Family Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine

Carol reviewed the RESPECT model, and how caregivers can use it in their daily practice, teaching and supervision. A relational model that addresses difference and power, RESPECT identifies skills to build trust with patients, especially with those who differ from the caregiver by race, culture or background. It is a helpful training tool that also guides preceptors and supervisors to partner with learners, supervisees and colleagues across differences in hierarchy. This webinar includes educational tools for observing, communicating and supervising with RESPECT. New work using RESPECT to address diversity and hierarchy on multidisciplinary teams is also highlighted.

Additional Resources

Effective and Compassionate Communication for Informed, Shared Decision-Making

Presented by:
  • Calvin Chou MD, PhD, FAACH, Professor of Clinical Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, Academy Chair for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Vice President for External Education, AACH Director, UCSF-VALOR Program
  • Nan Cochran MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, Associate Professor of Community and Family Medicine, Associate Professor of The Dartmouth Institute, Dartmouth Medical School

Everyone talks about shared decision-making, but most clinicians have not been trained in the specific communication skills required. To provide true patient-centered care, providers must probe to understand the patient’s unique circumstances, values, and preferences in order to help arrive at a therapeutic choice that fits his/her individual needs. This webinar reviews how to elicit patient preferences, how to communicate risks and benefits effectively, and how to recognize and help patients resolve decisional conflict.

Additional Resources

Family Meetings: Improving Family-Clinician Communication

Presented by:
  • J. Randall Curtis MD, MPH, Director of Cambia Palliative Care Center of Excellence at Harborview Medical Center, University of Washington

Family meetings are a routine part of care for seriously ill patients and their families.  Effective conduct of these meetings has been associated with improved patient care and improved family outcomes. In this webinar, Dr. Curtis shares tips for both running and teaching positive family meetings, improving interdisciplinary communication, facilitating shared decision making around end-of-life care and how to use family meetings as a quality measure.

Additional Resources

Navigating Discussions of Prognosis: Balancing Hope and Honesty

Presented by:
  • Vicki Jackson MD, MPH, Chief of the Palliative Care Division, Massachusetts General Hospital, former Fellowship Director, Harvard Palliative Medicine Fellowship

Dr. Jackson addresses the myths and barriers associated with communicating challenging information to patients and present a cognitive model for prognostic disclosure. Viewers will gain a deeper understanding of the research supporting different communication strategies for discussing difficult content and addressing patient and caregiver emotions.

Additional Resources

title

Yes, Empathy Can Be Taught!

Presented by:
  • Helen Riess MD, Director of the Empathy and Relational Science Program, Massachusetts General Hospital, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

Transforming Moral Distress into Compassionate Action

Presented by:
  • Cynda Rushton PhD, RN, Professor of Nursing, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Founding Member, Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics
Additional Resources

Self-Compassion and Psychological Well-Being

Presented by:
  • Chris Germer PhD, author of The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion
  • Kristin Neff PhD, Associate Professor of Human Development and Culture, Educational Psychology Department, University of Texas at Austin

Self-compassion involves treating ourselves kindly in times of emotional distress, just as we would a close friend we care about. Rather than making global evaluations of ourselves as “good” or “bad,” self-compassion involves understanding ourselves as imperfect humans, and learning to be present with the inevitable struggles of life with greater ease. It motivates us to make needed changes in our lives not because we’re worthless or inadequate as we are, but because we care about ourselves and want to lessen our suffering. This talk presented theory and research on self-compassion, which a burgeoning empirical literature shows is strongly associated with psychological well-being. It also discussed how self-compassion can be a powerful tool for caregivers, allowing us to be fully present for others while avoiding burnout and caregiver fatigue. Finally, a brief self-compassion exercise was taught, which can be practiced in daily life.

Additional Resources

Clinician Resilience: Preventing Burnout, Promoting Compassion and Improving Quality

Presented by:
  • Ronald M. Epstein MD, Professor of Family Medicine, Psychiatry, Oncology and Nursing, University of Rochester Medical Center
Additional Resources
Go to top of page