End-of-Life Care Practitioner Program

WHO SHOULD APPLY?

"Medical training is about mastery, about curing and fixing often taught in environments of competition and criticism… but this course is about living in mystery. This program has liberated and broadened the way I practice medicine. This humanistic approach I've learned is changing the way I create curriculum for medical students."
Program graduate Norma Hirsch MD
Iowa Partnership for Dying with Dignity

This training offers a unique opportunity for those seeking personal and professional development. We encourage healthcare professionals (including nurses, physicians, social workers) educators, psychotherapists, clergy, or chaplains, and hospice professionals to apply. While the program is primarily designed for professionals, we are open to applicants with relevant hospice volunteer experience or those with transferable professional experience who are considering career path changes. However, this is not a course for beginners.

Building local networks: Program graduates Gunilla Bishop, bereavement counselor, Hospice of Western CO. Grand Junction, CO and Carole Lindroos, counselor, Qualife Wellness Community, Denver CO

The primary admission criteria are:

• Substantial direct experience in end-of-life care.
• A committed personal spiritual practice or path that is integrated with your end-of-life work.
• Demonstrated experience in basic counseling or coaching skills and capacity for deep listening and clear communication.
• An existing affiliation with an end-of-life organization, healthcare institution or related program service.
• A proposed plan for use of the training in your organization or local community.

We are interested in candidates of differing professional disciplines and spiritual traditions. We feel that successful candidates are apt to share some of the following interests or qualities.

"I know a lot about technique, pain control and symptom management. This program is about discovering the place where spirit and soul infuse the sacred art of dying. This course is an answer to a nurses prayer."
Program graduate Mary Clark RN
Nurse Educator
Assante Hospice Medford, OR

• Personal and professional commitment to improving care of the dying.
• Entrepreneurial spirit.
• A mature relationship to your inner life.
• Value and support the sacred and spiritual dimension of dying.
• Willing to be transformed not just acquire new skills.
• Capacity to think outside the box.
• A commitment to live and work in accord with your highest values.
• Hungry for a new approach to service and end-of-life care.
• Excited by the benefits of group process and peer learning.
• Inspirational leader, change agent, intermediary.
• See dying as a transformational process.
• Value diversity, enriched by exchanges with other innovators.
• Developed capacity for presence, empathy, authenticity.
• Embrace paradox and uncertainty.
• Trust in our innate human capacity to discover our own solutions.
• Self-starter, maverick, independent thinker.
• Deep capacity for listening, clear communicator.
• Interested in creating new services to enhance end-of-life experiences

Finding common ground: program graduates Bill Stevens, chaplain, AIDS Ministry, NJ, and Garret Sanford, AIDS counselor, San Francisco, CA

If you are drawn to the course but hesitant to apply, please call 415.331.9600 to discuss your situation.

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