Session Two
Spirituality
October 22 ~ 3:00 PM EST
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Spiritual and religious beliefs can either help or hinder trauma survivors in their attempts to create a healthy understanding of traumatic events, and ultimately make meaning from the events. If trauma survivors believe that their Higher Power failed them, these beliefs could result in anger and disconnection from spiritual or religious support. ISome experts say that “Unless we start considering the spiritual fitness of our servicemen, 15 years from now the suicide rate will still be 20 each day.” We will explore how meaning develops during exposure to traumatic and loss events, and how religion and spirituality can provide a framework that may aid the development of meaning.
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- All sessions are free and all are welcome -
Featured Guest
BJ Miller, MD
Dr. BJ Miller is a longtime hospice & palliative medicine physician and educator. He’s been on faculty at his alma mater, UCSF, since 2007 and has worked in all settings of care: hospital, clinic, residential facility, and home.
He currently sees patients and families via telehealth through Mettle Health, a company he co-founded with the aim to provide personalized, holistic consultations for any patient or caregiver who needs help navigating the practical, emotional and existential issues that come with serious illness and disability.
BJ’s career has been dedicated to moving healthcare towards a human centered approach, on a policy as well as a personal level. Led by his own experiences as a patient, BJ has given over 100 talks nationally, and internationally, on the topics of death, dying, palliative care and the intersection of healthcare with design. His 2015 TED Talk: “Not Whether But How” (aka “What Matters Most at the End of Life”), has been viewed over 11 million times and his work has also been the subject of multiple interviews and podcasts, including Oprah Winfrey, PBS, The New York Times, The California Sunday Magazine, GOOP, Krista Tippett, Tim Ferriss and the TED Radio Hour. His book, A Beginner’s Guide to the End, was co-authored with Shoshana Berger and published in 2019.
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Following undergraduate studies in art history at Princeton, BJ received his MD from University of California San Francisco as a Regents' Scholar and completed his internal medicine residency at Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara, California, where he served as chief resident. He completed a fellowship in hospice and palliative medicine at Harvard Medical School, with clinical duties split between Massachusetts General Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Dr. Miller is a member of the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine and has received their Palliative Medicine Community Leadership Award. He serves as a Medical Advisor for the Partnership for Palliative Care, and is the Honorary Medical Chair to the Dream Foundation, a nonprofit organization that serves terminally ill adults and their families.