Psychedelic Therapy for Serious Illness and End of Life Care

Webinar:  September 28, 2023, 4-6 pm.

Articles about psychedelic treatments for serious illness and end of life care seem to be everywhere. Rarely a week goes by without a newly published study appearing in a peer-reviewed medical journal, usually followed by reports of the study in prominent news outlets. In this webinar, we will present recent research on this topic, provide an update on the current legislation efforts to legalize these treatments in Washington State, and reflect on proposed treatment guidelines how legalization may impact treatment plans.

Panelists include:

Dr. David Gruenwald, Medical Director of the Palliative Care and Hospice Service at VA Puget Sound Health Care System

Lisa Yeager, MSW, LICSW, CPTR Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker

Jesse Salomon, J.D. Democratic State Senator representing the 32nd Legislative District in Washington

Moderated by Devyani Chandran, Director, Palliative Care Institute, Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington

This webinar has been approved for 2 CME credits.

Accreditation Statement:

This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements of the Washington State Medical Association through the joint providership of PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center and Western Washington University Palliative Care Institute. PeaceHealth St. Joseph is accredited by the WSMA to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

PeaceHealth St. Joseph designates this live activity for a maximum of 2 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

This activity meets the criteria for up to 2 hour of Category I CME credits to satisfy the relicensure requirements of the Washington State Medical Quality Assurance Commission.

Disclosure:  No one in control of content for this educational activity has disclosed a relevant financial relationship with ineligible companies whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing products used by or on patients.

Two CME credits will be offered for this webinar.  (See Accreditation Statement Below)

Medical aid in dying (MAID) is currently legal in ten US states and the District of Columbia. The most frequent reasons for requesting MAID are typically loss of autonomy, decreasing ability to participate in pleasurable activities, impaired quality of life, and loss of dignity.

As of 2021, nearly 20% of hospital beds in community settings nationally are provided by a religiously affiliated healthcare organization. In Washington State, over 45% of Washington state's hospital beds are in facilities that are under religious directives,

In most of faith based systems, developing a compassionate and appropriate response to patients who request MAID has been challenging, raising both clinical and public health challenges and concerns regarding how health care providers, institutions, and medical systems will handle requests for AID.

This webinar will present the current landscape of MAID in Washington state and use case studies from three different faith based systems to explore these challenges and suggest some possible strategies and solutions.

Panelists include: 

Hilary Walker, Advance Care Planning Coordinator, PeaceHealth 

Judy Kinney, Executive Director, End of Life Washington, Seattle, Washington

Gregg Vandekieft, Executive Medical Director, Palliative Practice Group and TelePC, Providence Institute for Human Caring, Olympia, Washington

Barbara Morris, Geriatrician at STRIDE Community Health Center, Denver, Colorado

and will be moderated by Devyani Chandran, Director, Palliative Care Institute, Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington

Accreditation Statement:

This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements of the Washington State Medical Association through the joint providership of PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center and Western Washington University Palliative Care Institute. PeaceHealth St. Joseph is accredited by the WSMA to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

PeaceHealth St. Joseph designates this live activity for a maximum of 2 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

This activity meets the criteria for up to 2 hour of Category I CME credits to satisfy the relicensure requirements of the Washington State Medical Quality Assurance Commission.

Breaking bad news is one of a provider’s most difficult duties, yet medical education typically offers little formal preparation for this daunting task. In this free Zoom webinar, a panel of practitioners will provide advice and share case studies to explore best practices for this challenging responsibility, including techniques to facilitate breaking bad news, offer realistic hope based on the patient's goals and support patients and their families after the diagnosis has been shared.

Panelists include:

C. Bree Johnston, MD, Director, Palliative Care, Skagit Regional Health.

Eddie Harrod, MDiv, Chaplain, Whatcom Hospice, PeaceHealth

Koreen Fish, MSW, Coordinator for the Outpatient Palliative Care Team for PeaceHealth.

Claudia Fischer, RN, MSN, Program Coordinator, Inpatient Palliative Care Team, PeaceHealth. 

Moderator:

Devyani Chandran, PHD, Director, Palliative Care Institute and Associate Professor of Human Services at Western Washington University. 

1 hour of CME credit will be available.

Accreditation: This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements of the Washington State Medical Association through the joint providership of PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center and Western Washington University Palliative Care Institute. PeaceHealth St. Joseph is accredited by the WSMA to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

PeaceHealth St. Joseph designates this live activity for a maximum of 1 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

This activity meets the criteria for up to 1 hour of Category I CME credit to satisfy the relicensure requirements of the Washington State Medical Quality Assurance Commission.

This free three part Zoom webinar series will address some of the new developments in treatment and care of dementias, focusing on emerging areas of research and practice. Although these webinars are targeted for clinicians, family members and community members are welcome to attend.
 

Session One - January 26: Dementia in Primary Care: Prevalence to Partnerships

Dr. Kristoffer Rhoads - Associate Professor in the Department of Neurology at the University of Washington School of Medicine, co-director of Project ECHO- Dementia and Chair of the Health and Medical Subcommittee of the Dementia Action Collaborative

Session One will provide background on health and health care disparities for cognitive impairment and dementia and explore lifestyle interventions (i.e., risk reduction, exercise, diet, cognitive stimulation) that have impact on cognition and neurological disease processes, from prodromal phases to early dementia.
 

Session Two - February 2: Dementia in Primary Care: Identification and Advance Care Planning 

Dr. Barak Gaster - Professor of Medicine, University of Washington, Primary care physician, and Director of Cognition in Primary Care.

Session Two will evaluate how cognitive concerns can be managed in the primary care setting and explore tools to help express and document their values and preferences as families navigate difficult decisions related to goals of care discussions during a dementia illness.
 

Session Three - February 9: Early diagnosis, biomarkers and intervention in Alzheimer’s disease

Dr. Thomas Grabowski - Professor of Radiology and Neurology at the University of Washington, leads the UW Medicine Memory and Brain Wellness Center

Session Three will explore some of the new diagnostic and treatment options for dementia and evaluate recent developments around anti-amyloid antibody treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and other strategies promoted to enhance brain health. Participants will learn about the current research about how dementias disrupt brain function, the role of biomarkers, and the current efficacy of diagnostic and treatment options.

Register for all three sessions (January 26, February 2, and February 9, 2022) at the link below.

We hope you will attend all the sessions, but you are welcome to join any that fit your schedule and interests. 

CME will be offered. Please contact pci@wwu.edu for information about continuing education credits.

Disclosure:  No one in control of content for this educational activity has disclosed a relevant financial interest with ineligible companies whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing products used by or on patients.

Accreditation Statement:

This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements of the Washington State Medical Association through the joint providership of PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center and Western Washington University. PeaceHealth St. Joseph is accredited by the WSMA to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

PeaceHealth St. Joseph designates this live activity for a maximum of 3.75 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

This activity meets the criteria for up to 3.75 hours of Category I CME credit to satisfy the relicensure requirements of the Washington State Medical Quality Assurance Commission.

One of the elements addressed in the Aging Well Whatcom Blueprint is Cultural Shift, acknowledging that “our community has an incomplete and often negatively biased vision of aging.”  One of the expressed goals of this initiative is that “our community will have a full, honest understanding of the entire range of the realities of aging.”

The Art of Aging project was started because we recognized that although we know a lot about aging, most of what we know are broad brushstrokes. The details are missing. Important details. Reading statistical and demographic data, we cannot see the unique features that grace the face of each aging person.  When we look across our community, as a whole, we cannot possibly see the laugh lines and creases of sorrow of each individual’s experiences or hear their voice or rhythms of their thoughts.

The Art of Aging project is one step toward exploring some of the details of aging through series of portraits and recorded interviews reflecting diverse experiences of older adults in Whatcom County, as told through their own words.

A collaboration between Marie Eaton, Sarah Lane, and Richard Scholtz, the project produced 20 painted and audio portraits throughout 2021. 

Visit the Art of Aging webpage to spend some time with elders from across Whatcom County. 

The portraits are on display for the month of February 2022 at the Blaine Senior Center, 763 G Street, Blaine, WA.

Washington State has been a national leader in long-term support and services among all 50 states.  Despite these successes, we continue to suffer from the crisis of caregiver shortage. Such a challenge will only get worse as baby boomers begin to enter their later senior years.  The good news is that many entities in our state are working hard and creatively to strengthen and grow a quality long-term care workforce to serve our elderly at home.

The Northwest Life Passages Coalition and the Palliative Care Institute have collaborated to host a research team from Western Washington University who will share the current conditions of the home care workforce in the state overall and Whatcom county specifically.

They will also propose specific advocacy efforts that individuals and families within our community can engage in to help solve this challenge.  

Presenters include:

Baozhen Luo, PhD, Sociology

Jodie Howson-Watt, Sociology

Sawyer Jarvis, Sociology

Jane Polinder, Palliative Care Institute &

Human Services

Time: May 24, 2021 03:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

Join Zoom Meeting
https://wwu-edu.zoom.us/j/92735117094?pwd=K3F5UGEwNW5aaTRkanB2aGxPQTFjZz09

Meeting ID: 927 3511 7094
Passcode: 372667
 

Voluntary Stopping Eating and Drinking (VSED) is becoming a more recognized end-of-life choice; patients are choosing to hasten their death by stopping eating and drinking. Typically, they make this choice when they feel that their body is so severely compromised that their quality of life is no longer acceptable.

Although a number of states, including Washington, have laws that allow patients who are close to dying to take medication to end their lives, that option is not always available and so some patients turn to VSED.

This 2-hour webinar will examine this process, Voluntary Stopping of Eating and Drinking (VSED), as an end-of-life choice, exploring moral, medical and legal issues that arise for patients, and their families and providers.

This webinar is intended to be an introduction to VSED as an end-of-life choice. We acknowledge that we advocate VSED as a choice but also understand that there are significant ethical and moral dilemmas raised by this choice.  Attendees will develop a basic understanding of VSED as an end-of-life option and be able to describe some of the moral, ethical and legal questions surrounding this choice, when and how to refer someone, and some of the key steps that should be taken if supporting a patient in this process.  There will also be time for questions for presenters.

An application for CME credit has been submitted.

Although this webinar is intended primarily for those in the medical field, we welcome community participation.  

Presenters include:

• Hope Wechkin, MD, Medical Director, EvergreenHealth Hospice and Palliative Medicine
• Megan Ellingson, MD, Palliative Care, Whatcom Hospice
• Sharmon FIgenshaw, ARNP, Hospice Nurse
• Jen VanderWeyden – family member whose mother chose VSED
• Erin Mae Glass, Elder Law Attorney, Baron Smith Law
• Nancy Simmers, RN, Death Doula, VSED Resources NW
• John Holmes, PhD,  Ethics Educator, PeaceHealth System

This webinar is co-sponsored by the Palliative Care Institute, A Sacred Passing, VSED Resources NW, End of Life Washington, and The Northwest Washington Medical Society.

See registration link below.