10/01/2019

Spiritual Care Conference to focus on Cancer and Caring for Cancer Patients

Spiritual Care Conference to focus on Cancer and Caring for Cancer Patients

DOVER, N.H. – The 11th Annual Spiritual Care Conference, Spiritual Care and Cancer: Addressing the Whole Person, will be held on October 22, at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital. This year’s Spiritual Care Conference will explore the physical and spiritual dimensions of living with cancer and caring for the cancer patient. The question being asked is: What are all the resources—values, medicine, family and community support, religious and spiritual beliefs and practices—that can be garnered, from diagnosis to treatment and after?

Registration begins at 11:30 a.m., and the conference opens with a panel discussion at noon. Later events include workshops, an art display, music, dinner, the keynote speaker and the presentation of the 2019 Bob Ervin Spiritual Care Award. The keynote speaker, Elana Rosenbaum, is a cancer survivor and a pioneer in the application of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and mindfulness meditation to cancer care. Rosenbaum is a clinical social worker, therapist, author and adjunct faculty member at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
Afternoon activities include workshops, art therapy and music:

• Caregivers & Caring
• What happens when Cancer Strikes Someone under 40?
• What Are Supportive and Palliative Care?
• The Role of Integrative Therapies
• What Does Survivorship Mean for Those Left Behind?
• Nutrition in the Cancer Treatment Menu
• The Labyrinth as a Meditative Practice
• The Practice of Spiritual Care Generalists and Specialists
• Music by the hospice singing group Journey Song and Sonatina Music Center

This year’s Spiritual Care Conference will also feature artist and ovarian cancer survivor Susan York, and the paintings she created during her 108 days of cancer treatment. The exhibit is titled the Gathering Goodness Mosaic and is the expression of Susan’s own spiritual journey with cancer. It will be on display near the Seacoast Cancer Center during the conference and through Spring 2020.

Registration for the 2019 Spiritual Care Conference is $15 here. For more information call 603-740-2823.

About Wentworth-Douglass Hospital
Wentworth-Douglass Hospital (wdhospital.org) is a not-for-profit charitable health care organization located in Dover, New Hampshire with a 113-year history of compassionate care and innovation. Serving the Seacoast communities since 1906, it is a family of 3,000 employees including 500+ registered nurses and a medical staff of over 480 physicians and advanced practitioners dedicated to the health, safety and well-being of residents and visitors to the Seacoast area of New Hampshire and Southern Maine. Wentworth-Douglass Hospital was awarded Magnet® designation in 2016, joined the Massachusetts General Hospital family in 2017 and includes a 178-bed hospital, several urgent care and walk-in facilities, multiple testing centers, Wentworth Health Partners (primary and specialty provider practices), The Works Family Health and Fitness Center and the Wentworth-Douglass Foundation.