The Heart of Hospice podcast is dedicated to helping personal and professional caregivers who are caring for someone with serious illness. We're here to provide information and education so people can make informed choices about end of life care.
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Advancecareplanning Podcasts
A geriatrics and palliative medicine podcast for every health care professional. Two UCSF doctors, Eric Widera and Alex Smith, invite the brightest minds in geriatrics, hospice, and palliative care to talk about the topics that you care most about, ranging from recently published research in the field to controversies that keep us up at night. You'll laugh, learn, and maybe sing along. CME and MOC credit available (AMA PRA Category 1 credits) at www.geripal.org
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End of Life Options: The Powerful Story of Brittany Maynard
59:10
59:10
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59:10End of life option advocate Dan Diaz is sharing the story of his wife Brittany Maynard and her pursuit of a gentle death. Diagnosed at age 29 with a terminal brain tumor, Brittany chose to move 600 miles to a state that allowed for death with dignity, utilizing Medical Aid in Dying. In this powerful interview, Dan describes the impact of her life a…
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System Wide Goals of Care Implementation: A Podcast with Ira Byock, Chris Dale, and Matt Gonzales
50:06
50:06
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50:06Most health care providers understand the importance of goals-of-care conversations in aligning treatment plans with patients’ goals, especially for those with serious medical problems. And yet, these discussions often either don't happen or at least don't get documented. How can we do better? In today’s podcast, we sit down with Ira Byock, Chris D…
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Back to Basics: What You Need to Know About Live Discharges
30:34
30:34
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30:34Hospice nurse Beth Cavenaugh helps to clear up confusion around live discharges from hospice services. Sometimes people on hospice care improve or stabilize, and no longer meet the criteria to receive care from the hospice agency. The discharge process can be confusing, and it’s important to know the things that need to happen. Here are a few highl…
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Death Anxiety: Dani Chammas & Keri Brenner
1:00:23
1:00:23
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1:00:23What is death anxiety? We spend the first 15 minutes of the podcast addressing this question. And maybe this was unfair to our guests, the fabulous dynamic duo of palliative psychiatrists Dani Chammas and Keri Brenner (listen to their prior podcasts on therapeutic presence and the angry patient). After all, we invited them on to our podcast to disc…
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Alz Authors Bring Powerful, Personal Stories to the Printed Page
39:13
39:13
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39:13Author and Alzheimer’s caregiver Marianne Scuicco shares her powerful story of caring for her mother and stepdad through dementia diagnosis and end of life. She describes the roller coaster of her caregiving journey, all the ups and downs that her family experienced. After her stepfather was diagnosed with mixed dementia and her mother declined, Ma…
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Individualizing Blood Pressure Goals in Older Adults: A Podcast with Mitra Jamshidian, Simon Ascher and Mark Supiano
46:41
46:41
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46:41What’s the ideal blood pressure target for older adults with hypertension? Should we aim for a systolic BP of 120 mmHg in all older adults, as suggested by the SPRINT trial? Or should we be more flexible—especially for those who are frail or among the oldest old? This week on the GeriPal Podcast, we explore the nuances of managing blood pressure in…
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Back to Basics: What You Need to Know About Complaints
28:39
28:39
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28:39We’re getting back to the basics of hospice care, sharing information about complaints, when to make them, and what should happen when you do. Hospice Social Worker Lisa Pahl (creator of The Death Deck and End of Life Deck) helps drive this discussion. Here are a few highlights from our discussion: •Patients and/or caregivers have a right to make a…
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Should Palliative Care be in the Survivorship Business? A Podcast with Laura Petrillo, Laura Shoemaker
47:31
47:31
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47:31In this week’s episode, we dig into two deceptively simple questions: When does someone become a cancer survivor, and should palliative care be in the business of caring for them? Spoiler: It’s more complicated than it seems. We’ve invited two palliative care doctors to talk about survivorship with us: Laura Petrillo, a physician-researcher at Mass…
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How to Be the Best Caregiver You Can Be Without Being Perfect
56:46
56:46
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56:46Drs. Barry Jacobs and Julia Mayer join the podcast for a great conversation about bringing your best to caregiving, reminding us that caregivers don’t have to be perfect. As authors and clinical psychologists, Barry and Julia support family caregivers, guiding them through the messiness of caring for a loved one. As a married couple, they’ve had li…
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Health and Wealth Shocks: Lauren Hunt, Rebecca Rodin, Tsai-Chin Cho
44:35
44:35
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44:35June Lunney famously characterized the end of life functional course of people with dementia as a slow dwindle over time. Tom Gill later found that people with dementia do indeed have persistent severe disability throughout the last year of their lives. But from our clinical work, many of us are familiar with people with dementia who experience sud…
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Back to Basics: What You Need to Know About Transfers
29:59
29:59
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29:59We’re getting back to the basics of hospice with Hospice Social Worker Lisa Pahl, sharing information about transfers from one hospice agency to another. It’s really important for patients and their decision makers to know they can transfer to another hospice agency if the care isn’t a good fit. Hospice team members should be knowledgeable about ho…
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Transgender Health, Aging, and Advocacy: A Podcast with Noelle Marie Javier and Jace Flatt
48:24
48:24
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48:24Happy Pride Month GeriPal listeners! Transgender issues are in the news. Just today (June 17th) as we record this podcast: Ezra Klein released a wonderful interview with Sarah McBride, the first openly transgender member of congress A judge ruled that cuts to NIH grants focused on minority groups, including transgender people, were illegal and orde…
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Elder law attorney Patrick Cawley is equipping dementia caregivers with the essential tools they need for estate planning, including advance care planning for end of life. Patrick guides family members as they navigate the health care system and complicated ways to pay for long-term care for their loved one. He is a certified dementia care consulta…
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What You Should Know About Radiation Oncology: A Podcast with Anish Butala, Emily Martin and Evie Kalmar
49:44
49:44
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49:44If you’re anything like me, you might find the process of what happens to patients when they visit a radiation oncologist somewhat mysterious. During my training, I didn’t receive much education about radiation oncology, and I’m not entirely sure what some of the terms mean (hypofractionated means fewer sessions, right?). Well, today’s podcast aims…
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Back to Hospice Basics: What You Need to Know About 24/7 Hospice Services
27:29
27:29
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27:29On-call, after hours, 24/7 services - no matter what you call it, hospice care is available to patients and caregivers every hour of every day. Regardless of the day of the week, whether it’s a holiday, or the office is closed, a member of the hospice team is accessible all the time. Some hospice agencies have answering services or triage teams, bu…
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Implementing Palliative Care in Nursing Homes
48:06
48:06
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48:06The need for better palliative care in nursing homes is significant. Consider this: the majority of the 1.4 million adults residing in U.S. nursing homes grapple with serious illnesses, and roughly half experience dementia. Many also suffer from distressing symptoms like pain. In addition, about 25% of all deaths in the United States occur within t…
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Engaging the Remarkable Energy of Aromatherapy at End of Life
41:07
41:07
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41:07Blending aromatherapy and sound bathing into the care of dying patients comes naturally to end of life doula and hospice nurse Carrie Oram. Carrie has witnessed deep, relaxing responses from clients as they experience the vibrations of Tibetan sound bowls. Regardless of diagnosis or disease progression, people who are at the end of their lives beco…
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Lucid Episodes: Andrea Gilmore-Bykovskyi & Andrew Peterson
48:55
48:55
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48:55Have any of you watched the movie “The Notebook”? At the end, one of the characters, who has dementia, experiences an episode of lucidity. When I watched it, between tears (I’m a complete softie) I remember thinking, “Oh no! This will give people false hope! That their loved one is ‘in there.’ If only they could find the right key to unlock the loc…
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Back to Hospice Basics - What You Need to Know About Continuous Care
29:50
29:50
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29:50We’re getting back to the basics of hospice, talking about Continuous Care with hospice nurse Gabby Jimenez of The Hospice Heart. Continuous care can be confusing. We’re talking about when it’s used, how it works, and where it happens. Here are some highlights from this episode: • Continuous Care (CC) is a level of care within the Medicare hospice …
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Music as Medicine: Jenny Chen, Tyler Jorgensen, & Theresa Allison
42:03
42:03
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42:03As you know, dear listeners, I love music. We start each podcast with a song in part to shift the frame, taking people out of their academic selves and into a more informal conversation. Well, today’s guests love music at least as much if not more than me, and they each make a strong case for music as medicine. Jenny Chen is a palliative care fello…
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This is What Funeral Planning Should Look Like
47:15
47:15
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47:15Funeral director Andre Roupp of Roupp Funeral Home believes each person and every family has a story, and he’s sharing all the ways funeral planning makes services personal and meaningful. When advance care planning doesn’t include funeral planning, there can be fallout that makes the family’s grief journey more difficult. Here are some highlights …
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Nudges for Prognosis and Comfort Care in the ICU: Kate Courtright, Scott Halpern, & Jaspal Singh
48:27
48:27
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48:27Our main focus today was on nudging critical care clinicians to consider a more palliative approach to care. Our guests are all trained in critical care: Kate Courtright, Scott Halpern, and Jaspal Singh. Kate and Scott have additional training in palliative medicine. To start. we review: What is a nudge? Also called behavioral interventions, heuris…
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Back to Hospice Basics: What You Need to Know About Respite
31:54
31:54
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31:54We’re getting back to the basics of hospice care with Social Worker Lisa Pahl to talk about respite care and how it works. Respite care is part of the care that hospice agencies provide but the details about it can be confusing. Here are a few things you should know about respite care: Respite care offers 5 days of care for a hospice patient to all…
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Psilocybin in Serious Illness: A Podcast with James Downar, Ali John Zarrabi and Margaret Ross
46:57
46:57
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46:57We’ve covered psychedelics on the podcast before—first in 2019 with Ira Byock, where we explored their potential role in medicine, and then again in 2023 with Stacy Fischer, Brian Anderson, and Theora Cimino, focusing on the reasons to approach psychedelic use in patients with caution. In today’s episode, we’re taking a closer look at the current s…
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How to Thrive as a Sandwich Caregiver in 2025
48:46
48:46
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48:46Christy Byrne Yates of Alz Authors has experienced all the unique challenges of sandwich caregiving. Caring for both of her parents with neurodegenerative diseases (dementia and Alzheimer’s disease) while she raised young kids taught her lessons she now shares with other caregivers. In this open and honest conversation, Christy shares the good time…
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HIV, Aging, and Palliative Care: Peter Selwyn and Meredith Greene
48:59
48:59
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48:59Peter Selwyn, one of today’s guests, has been caring for people living with HIV for over 40 years. In that time, care of people with HIV has changed dramatically. Initially, there was no treatment, then treatments with marginal efficacy, complex schedules, and a tremendous burden of side effects and drug-drug interactions. The average age at death …
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