Last week I attended the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization’s annual springtime meeting in Washington DC, cherry blossoms and all! It was a time to catch up on all the issues facing our hospice and palliative care movement, to reconnect with old friends… Jeanne Dennis, Susan Bruno, Patti Moore and Andrew Reed Pauline Taylor, …

It was 1985, I was the Executive Director of Hospice of North Central Florida, a tiny hospice program in Gainesville, FL. when I was approached by a woman who lived in a small rural town to offer our hospice services there. Bettye Zowarka was very active in her community and volunteered for many groups. She …

Did you see the story about the robot doctor that was sent to deliver bad news to a terminal patient? His daughter was with him when the telehealth machine rolled up to his bedside. On the flickering screen, a physician informed the patient that he was going to die, very soon – perhaps too soon …

My first real, significant job out of grad school was as the executive director of Hospice of North Central Florida, now known as Haven Hospice. When I joined the team there were three staff members and double that number of volunteers. Yet, tiny as it was, our organization was part of a great social movement, …

It seems like every day brings a new horror story in the news, around healthcare gone terribly wrong. A nursing home patient is abused by staff members who put videos of the abuse on the Internet. Hospice management is accused of fiscal misdoings, even outright fraud. A nurse administers the wrong medication with fatal results. …

As someone who’s been an executive, a management consultant, and a leadership coach, I know that there are all kinds of effective leaders out there. Some styles are more effective in certain situations than another. Great leaders do share some important traits, and I talked about four of these in a recent post; resilience, ambition, …

Are great leaders born or made? Does the man or woman make the times, or do the times make the man or woman? In uncertain times, understanding how leadership works (or doesn’t) is ever more imperative, and sometimes, it takes a historian’s perspective to unravel the present. Recently I listened to Doris Kearns Goodwin discuss …

I was taking a news hiatus last week when a friend’s email came, telling me that my favorite poet, Mary Oliver, had died. What an important voice to be extinguished! The first time I ever heard a poem by Mary Oliver was 1993 in a spiritual study group I was in, when one of the …

I have been thinking a lot about legacy these days. The start of a new year always puts me in the mood to be more intentional about what I want for the next 12 months. Yes, it’s goal setting time, but more importantly, I want be more deliberate in how I show up and leave …

Even in a year in which I’d stretched myself past what I thought were my limits, October was the most intense month of growth I could imagine. There were days I felt like my brain might actually explode (fortunately for those around me, it didn’t.) My October quest began with a question; How is the …