Grave Concerns – Details, episodes & analysis

Our first episode is a deep conversation with a woman who was told to prepare to die as cancer riddled her body, but Deanna Thompson is still here, still living as vibrantly as possible alongside the cancer that remains at bay. 

Thompson is a retired professor of religion at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. (Deanna A. Thompson | Home is her website!) 

Nationally known palliative care doctor, Jessica Zitter, says medical school students are taught how to keep patients alive, but no one teaches them how to let a patient die. 

Dr. Zitter's best selling book "Extreme Measures", was part biography and part expose into how our culture deals with death and dying. She argues that our current medical culture puts patients on what she calls the "End of Life Conveyor Belt." 

Grave Concerns host Cathy Wurzer sat down with Jessica Zitter to talk about Zitter's quest to change how we die in the United States and the intersection of medicine and movie making. Dr. Zitter is one of a handful of working physicians who also produce films. 

Dr. Zitter's non-profit organization is Reel Medicine Media. 

Life is so busy, who has time to think about stuff like wills, financial trusts, power of attorney or advance care directives? All important legal documents, but getting them done falls pretty far down our "to-do" list and there can be some pretty big consequences because of that. 

In this episode of "Grave Concerns" we have a check-list of items to ponder and why they are important, plus we touch on the topic of legacy. 

Two great guests in one episode: Jill Sauber, an elder law attorney in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area (https://sauberlaw.com/) and Ross Levin of Accredited Investors Wealth Management. (https://www.accredited.com/ross-levin) join Cathy in a wide ranging conversation. 

It's difficult to think of our own death, much less the passing of a loved one. According to the Conversation Project, more than 90% of us think it's important to discuss end-of-life wishes, yet only a fraction of us do it. 

Those conversations happen even less frequently and it's often a taboo topic, especially among medical professionals and care providers for people with an intellectual and/or developmental disability. (IDD) 

Approximately 7 to 8.5 million people in the U.S. have an intellectual and/or developmental disability (IDD), representing about 3%–5% of the total population, and they are often not at the table for end of life discussions. Why is that? 

In this episode of Grave Concerns, host Cathy Wurzer dives head-long into the conversation with three guests who have helped people in the IDD community talk about their mortality and why they need to be included  in these conversations. 

Sarah Hall is a researcher at the University of Minnesota. She was joined by Sue Walker and Cate Saracen-Peters from Hammer and NER, one of the largest disability service providers in Minnesota. 

Some of the resources discussed in this episode are here: https://www.caresearch.com.au/tel/

https://ageucate.com/

https://hammer.org/together-we-ensure-tomorrow/aging-well-end-of-life-care/

This is a follow up conversation from episode two, but this one is all about the difficult and sometimes confusing decisions patients are asked to make when filling out an advance care directive. 

Join guests Susie Putzke and Jill Massman, who have walked people through the thicket of medical options, in their respective roles as a former hospital chaplain (Rev. Putzke) and director of clinical services at Quiet Oaks Hospice in St. Cloud Minnesota. (Jill Massman, RN, DNP, APRN, AGCNS-BC, ACHPN, OCN) 

Information on Quiet Oaks Hospice House: https://quietoakshospicehouse.org/

Making medical decisions: https://theconversationproject.org/nhdd/advance-care-planning/

If you have a bad accident and are in a coma, or maybe you're coming close to the end of your life, do you think your medical team would know what kind of care you'd like if you couldn't speak for yourself? 

There's a written form called a health care directive that outlines the kind of care you want and don't want if you're not able to make your own medical decisions. 

What's the philosophy behind these legal documents? In this episode, we'll talk with one of the country's foremost experts in advance care planning, Dr. Bud Hammes, who was the force behind Gunderson Health System's "Respecting Choices" program. 

Also joining us, Dr. Nneka Sederstrom,  the former Chief Health Equity Officer at Hennepin Healthcare in Minneapolis Minnesota and co-founder of UzObi, an advance care planning tech company.

People who take care of the dying say there seems to be several things those at the end-of-life really want. 

They want to repair damaged relationships, say thank you to people who meant the most to them and say the words, one last time, "I love you." 

Our guest, noted palliative care physician, Dr. Ira Byock also says asking for forgiveness and forgiving others is key to dying with a sense of well-being. 

As part of a wide-ranging conversation, Dr. Byock tells our host, Cathy Wurzer, something that he has never regretting doing before his own mother died. 

It's a great conversation with the author of the best-selling books "Dying Well" and "The Four Things that Matter Most."