VOLUNTEER SUPPORT GROUP - SAVE THE DATE

Monday, MAY 4, 5:00-6:30 pm

Please mark your calendars to attend our next Volunteer Support Group on May 4th. Come gain insights from our shared experiences about this deeply rewarding work. These monthly meetings provide in-service education to enhance specific skills, knowledge and competencies, and support your well-being too! Active volunteers, whether or not you currently have a family/patient assignment, are asked to attend. RSVPs are appreciated and light refreshments will be provided. Location: Kauai Hospice Conference Room.

ARTICLE: THE LANGUAGE OF SIDE EFFECTS - HOW WORDS SHAPE A PATIENT'S EXPERIENCE

BY: COURTNEY DESY, BSN, RN, OCN (American Journal of Nursing Blog - Off the Charts) 

No matter the nursing specialty, how information is framed when communicating will shape what patients expect to feel, and expectations can influence what they actually experience. The author is an oncology infusion nurse at UMass Memorial; she writes: "Nurses speak thousands of words a day—vital signs, medication names, discharge instructions—but within that rhythm live phrases that shape how people cope. Our goal is never to soften reality or minimize side effects; patients deserve truth. What matters is how we deliver it—whether our tone invites fear or fosters partnership, whether our words validate the feelings that follow. When I say, “You will feel tired,” the message sounds absolute, leaving no room for variation or hope. When I say, “Many people feel tired, and we’ll help you manage it if it happens,” the information is identical, but the intention changes. One predicts suffering; the other promises support. Click here to continue reading...

INSTAGRAM: NURSE JULIE – BIOLOGICAL FACTS ABOUT DYING

BY: END WELL (2:00 minutes)

You don’t need to sign up or log in to watch ("x" will close the pop-up)

End Well has posted a short video clip from an interview between podcaster/ actor Rainn Wilson and Julie McFadden, also known as Hospice Nurse Julie. The theme is about what dying actually looks like at the end of life. In their conversation she shares what she has witnessed at the bedside over many years of hospice work. For those encountering the dying process for the first time, education about what the body is doing can help soften fear and distress and make it easier to stay present with our loved one.  Click to watch. End Well is a nonprofit on a mission to transform how the world thinks about, talks about, and plans for the end of life. 

GOOD READS: THE EMPEROR OF ALL MALADIES – A BIOGRAPHY OF CANCER

BY: SIDDHARTHA MUKHERJEE, MD

The Emperor of All Maladies is a Pulitzer Prize-winning nonfiction work that chronicles the 5,000-year history of cancer. Described as a "biography" of the disease, it traces cancer's origins from ancient Egypt to the modern era of targeted therapies and genomic medicine. Mukherjee, an oncologist and researcher, blends clinical rigor with human storytelling, making the complex biology accessible to lay readers. In an engaging novel-like narrative, the book explores humanity's long and complex struggle with the disease through its evolution and the people who have fought it. Themes of human ingenuity, resilience and perseverance, as well as the hubris and failures in the "war on cancer" are examined. The updated 2025 edition includes four new chapters that cover revolutionary advancements in cancer detection and treatment from the last 15 years. 

YOUTUBE SHORT: WHAT HAPPENS IN A NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE

BY: SARAH KERR, PhD (1:15 minutes)

Near-death experiences point to a moment that sits just beyond how modern Western culture usually teaches you to think about life and death. Kerr, founder of The Centre for Sacred Deathcare, explains that in her work she's found that how you understand death shapes your fear, trust, and capacity to stay present when approaching the threshold. When you widen the frame beyond the physical body, the meaning of death also expands. Doing so will offer more continuity and coherence than modern culture prepares us for. Click here to watch and learn what near-death experiences may be showing us about the moment between staying and going.

ABSTRACT: CAN VERSUS SHOULD: PUBLIC EXPECTATIONS AND THE HIGH-INTERVENTION DEATH – A PRACTICAL GUIDE FOR CLINICIANS

BY: Sophia Henderson, Calvin Lightbody, Mark Taubert

(Future Healthcare Journal, Vol. 13, Issue 1, March 2026)

ABSTRACT: Escalation of medical intervention near the end of life has become increasingly common, often driven by public misperceptions of medical capabilities, cultural narratives of ‘fighting’ disease, and clinicians’ discomfort with discussing limitations of more extreme treatment regimens. The result is the high-intervention death: intensive, invasive and frequently misaligned with patient values.

This article examines the dynamics underpinning these decisions from the perspectives of emergency medicine, intensive care and palliative medicine. The authors describe the consequences of late acceptance of dying, the absence of advance and future care planning, and societal unpreparedness for death. They propose practical strategies to support better decision-making, including early goals-of-care discussions, compassionate communication, and a cultural shift towards acknowledging death as a realistic and acceptable outcome. Restoring humane, value-aligned care which still includes a plethora of treatments, albeit less invasive ones, requires clinicians to balance medical capability with compassion, clarity and courage. Click here to read.

YOUTUBE: PEOPLE WITH DEMENTIA ARE "HUMAN FOREVER"

BY: TEUN TOEBES (6:59 minutes)

Teun Toebes moved into a locked dementia ward at age 21 and lived alongside people with dementia for three and a half years. The experience completely changed how he looks at dementia and the people who live with it. His intention was not to observe from a distance, but to share the rhythms and realities of their daily life. Toebes, a humanitarian activist and healthcare innovator, travelled around the world with filmmaker Jonathan de Jong on a mission to learn ways for improving quality of life. The film Human Forever-A Story about Love for Humanity, is the most-watched documentary ever in Dutch cinemas and has been released in more than 30 countries. It asks us to reconsider how we think about dementia and the systems we have built around it. Click to hear Toebes talk about the film (with English subtitles). 

ARTICLE: MEDICAL GASLIGHTING: NAVIGATING PATIENT-CLINICIAN MISTRUST IN HEALTHCARE 

BY: MARCO FAYTONG-HARO (Front Health Serv., Nov. 20, 2025)

"Medical gaslighting refers to situations in which healthcare professionals dismiss, minimize, or doubt a patient's symptoms and concerns without appropriate evaluation. This colloquial term, derived from the concept of “gaslighting” in psychology, has gained prominence as patients share stories of feeling ignored or belittled by their providers. Such experiences can severely undermine the trust that is fundamental to the patient-clinician relationship. In recent years, the medical community has begun to acknowledge medical gaslighting and the many forms it takes, as a serious problem". Click here to continue reading the article's comprehensive perspective on this phenomenon. This PubMed Central article is a free, full-text, peer-reviewed biomedical or life sciences journal article archived in the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) digital repository.