Podcast: Grave Concerns

Listen to Grave Concerns on SpotifyorApple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Grave Concerns has a cheeky title, but it’s important and meaningful content. It’s all about preparing people for their inevitable end. What to think about if you or a loved one has been diagnosed with a life limiting illness. 

Cathy Wurzer, with the End in Mind Project, talks with experts so you can have some peace of mind about an end-of-life journey. 

Grave Concerns podcast episodes

This episode of Grave Concerns explores why people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) are often excluded from end-of-life conversations. Host Cathy Wurzer speaks with researcher Sarah Hall and disability service leaders Sue Walker and Cate Saracen-Peters about the importance of including the IDD community in discussions about mortality and care planning.

A follow-up to episode two, this conversation explores the difficult and often confusing decisions patients face when completing an advance care directive. Guests Susie Putzke, a former hospital chaplain, and Jill Massman, director of clinical services at Quiet Oaks Hospice in St. Cloud, Minnesota, share their experience guiding individuals and families through complex medical choices at the end of life.

What would happen if you were unable to speak for yourself at the end of your life—would your medical team know the care you’d want? In this episode, leading experts Dr. Bud Hammes and Dr. Nneka Sederstrom explore the philosophy behind health care directives and advance care planning, and how these tools can ensure your wishes are understood and honored.

Our first episode is a deep conversation with a woman who was told to prepare to die as cancer riddled her body, but Deanna Thompson is still here, still living as vibrantly as possible alongside the cancer that remains at bay.

Interested in listening to other podcasts by End in Mind? View all of our podcastshere.