Educating Healthcare Professionals About the Impact of Trauma on Survivors Facing the End of Life

On Wednesday, June 19 I will be presenting an educational program entitled “Understanding the impact of trauma on Holocaust Survivors Facing the End of Life: Examining the Past to Improve Care in the Present”. This topic has been extremely personally important to me, having observed both personally, as a daughter of survivors, and professionally, as a psychologist working in medical settings, the need for educating healthcare professionals about how to provide trauma-informed care to trauma-survivors.

This program is offered by MJHS Hospice and Palliative Care and Cultural Sensitivity and Jewish Programing, to help healthcare providers understand the impact of prior trauma on the experience of individuals at the end of life, how they might feel and how they might react in the course of their medical care and relationships with their healthcare providers. The presentation will include a didactic lecture about the long-term impact of trauma and the ways in which having suffered extreme cruelty and indifference by others in earlier phases in life can impact the experiences of elderly patients when they are ill, dying and dependent on the care of others.

 The lecture will include examples from real cases so participants will be able to apply the learning to actual scenarios that occur in their clinical practice.

At this time, the response to the program has been such that it is full. Should some cancellations leave some seats open, I will post a notice on this blog.

Irit Felsen