Hello APP Colleagues,

On Monday December 4, 2023 we welcomed Kristen Johnson  MS, CCLS, CT, GC-C Thanatologist, Certified Grief Counselor, Certified Grief Educator, and Certified Child Life Specialist and Lisa Stephens MSN, APRN, ANP-BC, ACHPN, FPCN for a session on:

Grief and the Holidays: Compassion and care for the people we serve, for the team members we work with, and for ourselves.  

A conversation focused on how we help our patients and their families through the Holiday season when they are actively grieving, have sad and/or painful memories associated with the Holidays and also how we as providers take time to acknowledge our own feelings around the Holiday season.

Kristen works as the Program Manager of Palliative Care Bereavement and Volunteer Programs within the section of Palliative Care at Dartmouth Health, leading and overseeing bereavement programming and bereavement program facilitation.  She completed a master’s in Thanatology with a final capstone project on Bereavement Programming in Hospice and Palliative Care.  Prior to transitioning to her role in Palliative Care, Kristen worked clinically as a child life specialist at Dartmouth Health Children’s and Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore, Maryland and has extensive experience in bereavement care and leadership of bereavement programming and support.  Kristen is also a bereaved daughter who supported her mother in serious illness through end of life, caring for her at home in hospice as she died the day before Thanksgiving in 2016.      

Lisa is an Adult Nurse Practitioner with over 30 years of experience in hospice and palliative care. In 1999, Lisa received the National Certified Hospice and Palliative Nurse of the Year Award. Lisa joined the Palliative Medicine Service at DHMC in 2002 and is responsible for helping to create a strong clinical service and a growing educational footprint.  She has worked in both inpatient and outpatient clinical services and is currently the Lead Nurse Practitioner on the team. Her work in policy development has been invaluable.  Lisa has played a key role in shaping the professional development of every palliative care fellow who has completed the program and is one of a small number of nurse practitioners who has received an Excellence in Teaching award from the Department of Medicine.  Lisa was instrumental in writing the proposal to get institutional support to include 2-APP fellows each year to the DH Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship and is currently the Associate Program Director of this Interprofessional Fellowship. She has published on hospice team members, hospice comfort kits, palliative care for cancer patients, and models for outpatient palliative care. She lectures locally, regionally and nationally on pain and symptom management and communication in palliative care. Lisa received an Honorable Mention from the Schwartz Center for the 2015 Compassionate Caregiver of the Year and was inducted as a National Fellow in Palliative Care Nursing in 2020.