ADEC is pleased to announce the following keynote presentations for the 2025 Conference:

Thursday, April 3, 2025: 

Through the eyes of the Bilagáana: Lessons on Living and Dying gifted from Native American Patients

Presented by: Suzanne Stern-Brant, LCSW, APHSW-C

New Mexico is a minority majority State unique in geography and culture, inhabited by First Americans, colonized by Spain, and claimed by the United States as a territory before becoming the 47th State. For members of the University of New Mexico palliative team, the Covid Pandemic highlighted the need for increased cultural awareness and humility from providers caring for indigenous peoples at end-of-life. This lecture explores the complexity of inter-cultural relationships between medical providers, patients, and families. Through case examples, we will examine how members of the dominant medical culture can more respectfully and compassionately serve dying patients and their families.

Learning Objectives:

1. To understand how New Mexico’s unique history and populations influence care at end-of-life
2. Explore the Diné (Navajo) construction of death to highlight deep differences in Indigenous and Western belief systems
3. To review Historical Trauma, define Historical Trauma responses, and provide examples of culturally respectful communication at end of life
4. To understand the negative impact of Covid hospital polices on Native families
5. To consider the importance of story in healing patients, families, and clinicians
6. Offer ideas for becoming a better inter-cultural partner in client/patient relationships

About the Presenter:

Suzanne Stern-Brant, LCSW, APHSW-C specializes in supporting adults and children living with chronic illness and terminal diagnosis. She holds a certificate in palliative and end-of-life care from Smith College of Social Work, a Master’s in Contemplative Psychology for Karuna, North American, and is a New Mexico Board of Social Work Examiners approved supervisor for clinical licensure.

Through a practicum at the UNM Office of the Medical Examiner, Suzanne developed a talent for treating complex grief and historical trauma. During the Covid Pandemic, Suzanne practiced radical social work with the University of New Mexico Hospital, Palliative Department, connecting underserved and marginalized individuals in the hospital’s ICUs with resources at vulnerable junctures in their lives. In her private practice, she utilizes Expressive Therapies- art, narrative, and sand tray- to help clients heal from trauma and evolve through grief. She is actively involved in the Children’s Grief Center, cofacilitates a Survivor of Medical Aid in Dying support group for the UNMH MAID Program, and supports medical and behavioral health practitioners recover from work related burnout and PTSD.

Friday, April 4, 2025 Keynote:

The Impact of Grief, Death and Dying on Healthcare Professional Well-Being and Patient Care: Lessons Learned from Twenty Years of Studying Grief in Healthcare Providers

Presented by: Leeat Granek, PhD

Do healthcare providers grieve when patients die? How does this grief affect the care that patients receive? In this presentation, I review my research on the grief experiences of surgeons, oncologists, nurses, social workers, and allied healthcare professionals in healthcare settings. I will present three sets of studies that focus on: 1) The emotional burdens of surgeons when they encounter death in their patients; 2) The grief of oncologists and allied health professionals when patients die from their disease; 3) The impact of grief on providers ability to communicate effectively about end of life and collaborate with palliative care teams.

Learning Objectives:

1. Understand the link between healthcare professional grief in a variety of settings on the quality of patient care and the ways in which grief and loss impact healthcare decision making.
2. Learn about how encountering death, grief, and dying in healthcare settings impacts different sets of healthcare providers (i.e., surgeons, oncologists, nurses, social workers etc.) mental health and emotional well-being through the presentation of empirical data and original research findings.
3. Learn about evidence based interventions to help support healthcare teams encountering loss, death, dying and grief and discuss the ways in which mental health clinicians who work on these teams can help support the providers.

About the Presenter:

Leeat Granek, PhD is a health psychologist and a Professor in the School of Health Policy and Management and Department of Psychology at York University in Toronto, Canada. Her research expertise is in the areas of grief and loss, psycho-oncology, and healthcare professional well-being. Recent awards include the Sigmund Koch Award for Early Contribution to the Field of Psychology and Distinguished Early Career Contributions in Qualitative Inquiry Award, both awarded by the American Psychological Association. Dr. Granek has published more than 100 articles on her research in leading journals including Death Studies, Qualitative Psychology, Cancer, JAMA Archives, and Psycho-Oncology. She is an Associate editor at Qualitative Psychology and in recent years has received research grants from the Canadian Institute of Health Research. She frequently writes about her research for the mainstream media in outlets such as The New York Times, Slate Magazine, and The Huffington Post and is interviewed frequently about grief in the mainstream media in outlets including the JCO Podcast and BBC radio.

Saturday, April 5, 2025 Keynote:

The Future of Thanatology: Looking Forward to Our Field’s Next Fifty Years

Presented by: William G. Hoy, DMin, FT

Before ADEC meets again in 2026, our beloved association will turn 50. When our forebears first gathered, death awareness was a young and growing movement, hospice in the U.S. was a new, volunteer-led group, and adults over 35 all remembered World War II. The needs so paramount in 1976 are greater today in our world of geopolitical uncertainty, discussions of hastened dying, community violence, and inequalities in access to care.

This presentation offers lenses through which we must view our future work as thanatologists as we seek to increase our own death competence and our understanding of the world in which we live, teach, and practice.

Learning Objectives:

1. Communicate the vital importance of thanatology from a contemporary global perspective


2. Describe ways the current socio-cultural realities of our world intersect with thanatology


3. Apply the resources ADEC offers to understand thanatology from a multi-faceted perspective employing our best tools in the humanities, social sciences, and biological sciences

About the Presenter:

William G. Hoy, DMin, FT For the last 40 years, William G. (Bill) Hoy has walked alongside the dying, the bereaved, and the professionals and volunteers who care for them. After 17 years at the helm of a southern California hospice’s bereavement program, he taught pre-medical students at Baylor University from 2012 until his retirement in May 2024. In his retirement, Dr. Hoy continues to offer clinical training workshops to caregiving professionals across the United States and Canada. Bill has been a member of our association for nearly 35 years and he served on the ADEC board for seven years including two terms as ADEC treasurer. In 2021, he was named as the recipient of ADEC’s Academic Educator Award. He has held the Fellow in Thanatology designation since the certification program was launched.

Dr. Hoy is author of more than 250 journal articles and book chapters as well as seven books. His newest volume is Creating Meaning in Funerals: How Families and Communities Make Sense of Death (Routledge, 2025). In this presentation, he offers his perspective as an ADEC member for 2/3 of our association’s life and well as his role as a clinician, social science researcher, and university educator as we think about our roles in education and clinical care in the years to come.

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