CO-DIRECTOR’S REPORT

Paulette Sansone, PhD, CSW, ACSW
Director of Social Service & Research
Schervier Nursing Care Center, Bronx, NY

How often, as you face the stresses and challenges of working in long-term care, has someone said to you, “you need to take some time out for yourself?” You need to treat yourself to something good?” Do these words sound familiar? And I can just hear the response: “Oh, I’m too busy; I have too much to do.” Well, the Ethics Network has the perfect solution. Take off the afternoon of June 8th and come to the Network’s next conference entitled, “Ethical Decisions in Dementia Care: Looking Beyond the Diagnosis” being held at Fordham University at Lincoln Center. I guarantee you it will be one sure way of being good to yourself.

As you can see from the write-up in this newsletter, we have brought together some of the leading experts in the field, starting with our keynote speaker, Bruce Jennings, Senior Research Scholar at The Hastings Center. Facilitating a workshop on Clinical and Ethical Issues in Hydration and Nutrition will be Rev. Daniel Sulmasy, OFM, MD, PhD, Sisters of Charity Chair in Ethics, Saint Vincents Hospital and Director, Bioethics Institute, New York Medical College. The workshop on Symptom Assessment and Therapy in Cognitively Impaired Residents in Long-Term Care will be conducted by Dr. David Wollner, MD, FACP, Geriatric Care Specialist, Department of Pain Medicine and Palliative Care, Beth Israel Medical Center, and Dr. Jeffrey Nichols, Co-Director of the Ethics Network and Medical Director of the Cabrini Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation will lead the workshop on Informed Consent. Quite an impressive group, to say the least! Be good to yourself – COME!!

Because this conference addresses the ethical issues involved in caring for all individuals with dementia, whether they reside at home or in a nursing facility, we hope that we will see more of our colleagues and friends from home health care and hospice in attendance.

Later this year, the Ethics Network will sponsor another conference pertaining to ethics committees in the new millennium. We will keep you posted as the plans develop. If you have suggestions for speakers, specific topics, etc. please let us know.

The Ethics Network is still waiting to hear from some of the foundations to which we submitted grant proposals. We feel that in the five and a half years the Network has been in operation, we have strived hard to fulfill our mission to provide education, training and consultation to professionals regarding ethics and ethical decision making in long-term care. We hope we will be able to continue to provide this much needed service. We are grateful, as always, to the Fan Fox Foundation for its support since the inception of the Network, and to the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation for its recent grant to the Network, which the Fan Fox Foundation has offered to provide a matching grant. If you know of any other Foundation that might be interested in supporting the work of the Ethics Network, please notify Dr. Susan Rosendahl-Masella.

Posted 5/4/2000.

Co-Director's Report published in the Spring 2000 edition of the Ethics Network News, 6(2).
Report available on-line at: https://www.angelfire.com/on/NYCLTCethics
network/My2000codir.html

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