Defining Hope: Screening and discussion at the Pickford Film Center
The Palliative Care Institute has partnered with the Pickford Film Center to bring Defining Hope to Bellingham.
Defining Hope is a story about people weighing what matters most at the most fragile junctures in life, and the nurses who guide them. This documentary follows patients with life-threatening illness as they make choices about how they want to live, how much medical technology they can accept, what they hope for and how that hope evolves when life is threatened. It is optimistic and reminds us that we have choices in how we die.
Defining Hope, which won the Best Premiere – Documentary Feature at the Heartland Film Festival, grew out of the groundbreaking American Nurse book and film by Carolyn Jones, and another year of research and interviews focused on what Dying in America looks like. This new film, Defining Hope, is the culmination of that journey.
This movie is critical and relevant right now, with our rapidly aging population and incalculable challenges in healthcare and end-of-life care. We aren’t dying the way we used to. We have ventilators, dialysis machines, ICUs—technologies that can “fix” us and keep our bodies alive—which have radically changed how we make medical decisions. In our death-denying culture, no matter how sick we get, there is always “hope.” The will to live is a powerful force, and eventually we will all have to make individual decisions when faced with very complex choices.
Join us for the screening of this important documentary film about end-of-life choices and a post-film discussion with nurse leaders in our community.
Sarah Bear, Director, RN-BSN Nursing Program, Western Washington University.
Jodi Newcomer, Nurse Manager, Whatcom Hospice
Sharmon Figenshaw, Palliative Care Nurse Practitioner
Tickets are required. Seating is limited and this screening is likely to sell out, so purchase your tickets in advance at the link below.