Last Right/Last Rites: The Art Of End-Of-Life Care

Science may give us the tools for curing; but it is the arts that give us the tools for caring. This presentation demonstrates how the arts challenge, instruct, and literally buttress us in our endeavor to stay present with another’s suffering and to better understand our own. Changing perspectives on autonomy, assisted death, and the healing power of hope, humor and grief will be illustrated.

Sandra Bertman is a thanatologist who pioneered applied arts and humanities in clinical, academic and public settings. For most of her career as Professor of Humanities in Medicine at UMass Medical and Graduate Nursing Schools she developed courses in end-of-life care, medical humanities, and grief counseling. Dr. Bertman was honored with the Distinguished Professional and Public Service Award from the University of Massachusetts, both outstanding Death Educator and Contribution to the Field Awards from the Association for Death Education and Counseling, and lifetime achievement awards from the Global Alliance of Arts and Health, the International Workgroup on Death, Dying and Bereavement, the Association for Behavioral Science and Medicine, and most recently (2018) the Robert F. Kennedy Social Justice Award for her work with HIV and Aging, and Good Shepherd Community Care’s inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award. Her publications include two classic handbooks Facing Death: Images, Insights and Interventions and Grief and the Healing Arts: Creativity as Therapy; the film, Dying, and the UPI award winning radio show Sing a Song of Dying.

5:30--6:00 Registration & Networking
6:00—7:00 Presentation

Good Shepherd Community Care 90 Wells Ave. Newton MA 02459