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Featured Keynote Sessions

We are excited to share the 2023 keynote faculty for the Annual Assembly of Hospice and Palliative Care. These sessions are designed to broaden your thinking and inspire thought-provoking conversations.

Greg Bell

What’s Going Well?: The Question That Changes Everything

Thursday, March 23, 2023AA23 Greg Bell website resize

Greg Bell is a Portland, Oregon-based thought leader, business consultant, and leadership coach. His popular books, What’s Going Well? and Water The Bamboo: Unleashing The Potential Of Teams And Individuals, have inspired an array of organizations. As an innovator and keen observer of highly successful leaders and teams, Greg has learned that the key to success is having the courage to use the skills you already have to achieve a result greater than you previously imagined. Inspiring and energizing audiences with his engaging storytelling, Greg shares his knowledge with excitement and passion.

Susan Block, MD FAAHPM

Integrating Core Mental Health Competencies: A Growth Edge in Hospice and Palliative Care

Susan Block PhotoInaugural Alyssa L. Bogetz Educational Fund Lecture
Friday, March 24, 2023

Susan D. Block, MD FAAHPM received her AB from Stanford University, her MD from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and completed residencies in both internal medicine and psychiatry at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston.  She is board-certified in both fields. For the past 40 years, Dr. Block has been a national leader in the development of the field of palliative medicine, focused particularly on the psychological and psychiatric issues related to serious illness, and has led major innovative educational and quality improvement projects in a variety of areas. She is known internationally as an expert in medical education, communication teaching, faculty development, and health system change, and has contributed to research in medical education, palliative care, Psycho-Oncology, and health system change.

She was the Founding Chair of the Department of Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care at Dana-Farber and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Founding Co-Director, with her husband, Andy Billings, MD of the Harvard Medical School Center for Palliative Care, a national center of excellence for palliative care education.  In addition, she was the founder and  Director of the  Serious Illness Care Program at Ariadne Labs, a joint center for healthcare innovation at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard School of Public Health, and a Professor of Psychiatry and Medicine at Harvard Medical School.  She is the author of over 200 publications and has won numerous awards for education, research, and leadership in both palliative medicine and psychiatry. She currently spends her time teaching undergraduates and clinicians at Dana-Farber, seeing patients, learning Italian, and developing herself as a printmaker and artist.

Dr. Block will reflect on the factors that make mental health issues challenging within the palliative care context, including the issues of stigma, lack of core knowledge, inadequate access to mental health expertise, and cultural differences (including the role of the culture of medicine in contributing to these deficits). It will focus on core mental health competencies that are of particular importance to non-mental health palliative care clinicians. Opportunities for all palliative care programs to enhance the learning of these basic mental health competencies during palliative care specialty training (and beyond) will be explored. This presentation will stimulate discussion, debate, and learning for multidisciplinary clinicians aiming to advance the support for patients with mental illness and their families.

Research Plenary

High Impact Hospice and Palliative Care Articles of 2022

David Casarett, MD MA FAAHPM (JPSM editor-in-chief), Ronit Elk, PhD FAAHPM, Solomon Liao, MD FAAHPM, and VJ Periyakoil, MD

Saturday, March 25, 2023

The Saturday morning opening keynote will review the latest research in hospice and palliative care as selected by you and your colleagues. Published research, crowd-sourced from members, will be discussed on our keynote stage. Future practice implications considered and the impact it will have on the advancement of palliative care and hospice will be addressed.