Grief in the Workplace: Challenges and Solutions

that two of the films I’ve been involved with, Extremis and End Game, were both Academy-award nominees. I was thrilled to recently learn that End Game has become an important educational film for television content creators as they seek to immerse themselves in the experience of end of life. That said, the cultural resistance is strong and we need to keep powerful stories like these out there. Our project with Hollywood, Health & Society will highlight all that happens along the life trajectory from diagnosis through to death as well as the experience of loved ones. Certainly, much of this experience is difficult but it is also tender, beautiful, surprising and, sometimes, just plain odd. Those very specific stories are the ones that tend to stick with people and affect them deeply. Sara Johnson: How do you use storytelling as a vehicle to convey your message? We’re storytellers —from medical professionals, caregivers, and those living with illness—who share the richness of the last phase of life, and can help any of us consider our values, get clear information about prognosis, and understand available choices for ourselves and our loved ones. At the same time, we work to influence the ways illness, dying, and death are portrayed in popular media, so more people and experiences are represented accurately, and a richer range of possibilities exists for everyone’s end of life. Sara Johnson: The endwellproject.org website offers resources for patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers. Which resources are most widely utilized, and where are there unmet needs? Dr. Shoshana Ungerleidger: Hands down, our videos are most widely utilized. We’ve had several of our long-form talks reach anywhere from 15,000 75,000 people. On social media, some of our shorter videos have reached as many as 500,000 people. Every day, we get inquiries about death doulas, pediatric palliative care, psychedelic-assisted therapies and advance care planning just to name a few. I wish we had more resources on the site to better serve people who learn about something from one of our videos and want to knowmore. Our goal is to build out more robust resource offerings on the site, but that takes money. Most people don’t know this, but we’re a very tiny group. There’s me, our ED who’s our only employee, some talented teams of consultants and our super dedicated Fellow. Sara Johnson: Should assisting people in creating a meaningful end-of-life care plan or facilitating the creation of plans by loved ones be a standard component of employer health and wellbeing initiatives? Dr. Shoshana Ungerleidger: Yes, absolutely end-of-life planning should be part of every workplace program. Just in terms of lost productivity, the time it takes people to sort out the practical things alone is huge. Helping employees with some guidance as to where to go for vetted advice and other resources would make a very big difference to their well-being and also to the workplace at large. If people have to sneak off to tend to the most important stuff then talking about that stuff becomes even more taboo. Sara Johnson: What other roles can employers play in improving the end-of-life care experience and how people navigate caregiving, death, dying, and grieving? Dr. Shoshana Ungerleidger: Offering time off for people taking care of or even just visiting with someone who is dying or to arrange and attend services as well as time after while they are grieving would be enormously beneficial. That said, in an ideal world, these benefits and resources wouldn’t be tied to employment. Sara Johnson: Are you aware of employers who are leaders/ positive role models for comprehensive advanced care planning/ end-of-life care benefits/programs? Dr. Shoshana Ungerleidger: I’ve learned that unfortunately, even with the more enlightened organizations, work-place policies change all the time. Sara Johnson: Are there best practices we should be aware of with regard to how we elicit people’s wishes? Dr. Shoshana Ungerleidger: I always bring it back to having endof-life planning conversations early and often and grounding these conversations in what are a person’s goals and values for not just their care but more importantly, the quality of the life they have left to live. For some people, that’s having every possible medical intervention, for others, it’s about being at home with their cat on their lap. Sara Johnson: Assisting individuals in clarifying their values and goals is often a central tenet of health promotion and wellbeing interventions. How does value and goal clarification facilitate end of life care planning? Dr. Shoshana Ungerleidger: Healthcare providers, family members and anyone else who might have some influence on where you are and what care you’re receiving at the end of life need to know what you care about. And, if you don’t know what that is, thinking about your ending now might help you answer some fundamental questions about who you want to be along the way.