Making Meaning at Twilight: End-of-Life Conversations
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More than 80 people gathered at United Church of Chapel Hill on Monday, April 21st for an all-day conference on end-of-life care offered by Caring Communities and Health and Nursing Ministries of Duke Divinity School.
Key note speakers included Anne Kissel, Director of Regulatory and Clinical Affairs with the Carolinas Center for Hospice and End of Life Care; Allen Verhey, Professor of Christian Ethics, Duke Divinity School; Margaret Frothingham, Director of Congregational Care, Blacknall Memorial Presbyterian Church in Durham; and Joyce Houk, a family caregiver.
The speakers and participants shared their experiences and expertise from hospice, pastoral care, congregational care, and family caregiver perspectives. Those attending included chaplains in acute care and hospice settings, faith community nurses, pastors, acute care and hospice nurses, social workers, and caregivers.
The conference concluded with a theatrical performance, Vesta, by Brian Harnetiaux, which was performed through partnership with the Institute on Care at End of Life at Duke Divinity School. The play illustrates an extraordinary family’s ups and downs as they struggle with the loss of their matriarch, Vesta. Jeanne Twohig, Deputy Director of the Duke Divinity Institute on Care at the End of Life led a “talk-back” session after the play.