Hear from the Experts on the SWHPN Discussion Forum

This month on the SWHPN member discussion forum, SWHPN members are reading posts from Karen Bullock on Cultural Proficiency in End-of-Life Care. Karen is Associate Professor at North Carolina State University, Department of Social Work. She is a John A. Hartford Faculty Scholar in Geriatric Social Work and received a Social Work Leadership Development Award from the Open Society Institute’s Project on Death in America. Her professional interests are health care disparities and cultural competence in the delivery of mental health service and clinical practice with individuals, couples, and families. She has published and presented extensively, holds a research and clinical appointment at Hartford Hospital and serves on the board of SWHPN, the NASW National Committee on Race and Ethnic Relations (NCORED) and the CSWE Council on Leadership Institute (CLD).

This topic will explore:

• How cultural diversity can create variation in patients’ values, family structures and functioning
• The importance of cultural competency and proficiency through standards of care and understanding socio-demographic factors that define culture
• Applying cultural values and patterns to practice in order to develop care plans for patients that best address the needs of specific populations

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During July, SWHPN members heard from Deborah Waldrop onDecision Making in Advanced Illness. Waldrop is Associate Professor at the University of Buffalo School of Social Work and earned her MSW from Syracuse University and her PhD together with a certificate in Gerontology from Oklohoma State University. Prior to her academic appointment, she spent 20 years as a social worker in various health care settings. Waldrop now conducts research to facilitate change in end-of-life care and help older people and their families faced with difficult decisions in some of the most vulnerable moments of life.

Posts in July focused on:

• An overview of decision making in current health care settings.
• Current resources in and implications of decision making for practitioners, policy makers and researchers.
• Factors that influence decision making, including familial relationships, symptom advancement throughout the course of an illness, access to care, age, lethality, comorbid conditions and available treatment.

Coming this year in the Hear from the Experts Series:

September—Palliative Care & Dementia, Sara Sanders
October—Bereavement, Annie Banks
November—Spirituality & Palliative Care, Shirley Otis-Green
December—Mentoring, Barbara Head