Contributors
Susan Belsinger
Susan Marie Belsinger has worked as Data Administrator at Hospice Foundation of America since October 2006. She is also the Managing Editor for Omega, a professional journal on death and dying. In her spare time, she is working towards a degree in Computer and Information Systems. She lives in Alexandria, Virginia with her boyfriend and a cat named Chaos. Read her posts here.
Vince Chiles, MSW
Mr. Chiles has a master’s degree in Social Work from Arizona State University. He lives in Reading, Pennsylvania, with his family, where he works as a hospice supervisor for Covenant Home Care. He is the author of Happiness in Five Minutes a Day, available on his website. Read his posts here .
Joyce D. Davidson, MS, CT
Ms. Davidson is a hospice and palliative-care counselor, as well as a crisis and trauma counselor, in New York City. She is also a member of the faculty of the New Jersey Medical School, a frequent speaker on the topics of end-of-life care and grief/bereavement, and has a private practice in grief counseling. She has coedited several HFA Living With Grief books with Kenneth J. Doka, including Living With Grief: At Work, At School, At Worship; Caregiving and Loss; and Living With Grief: Who We Are, How We Grieve. Read her posts here.
Kenneth J. Doka, PhD, MDiv
Dr. Doka is a professor of gerontology at the graduate school of The College of New Rochelle. Dr. Doka has written or edited 18 books, including HFA’s Living with Grief series, and has published 60 articles and book chapters. He is editor of Omega, a professional journal on death and dying, and Journeys, HFA’s monthly and special issue bereavement newsletter. Dr. Doka was elected president of the Association for Death Education and Counseling (ADEC) in 1993. He was elected to the Board of the International Work Group on Dying, Death and Bereavement in 1995, and served as its chairman from 1997 to 1999. In 2006, Dr. Doka was recognized as a mental health counselor under New York State’s first licensure of counselors. He is an ordained Lutheran minister. Read his posts here.
Lisa McGahey Veglahn
Lisa McGahey Veglahn is a consultant to the Hospice Foundation of America. As Senior Program Officer,
she oversaw the production of seven National Bereavement teleconferences for HFA. Ms. Veglahn served as a member of the Last Acts Workplace Task Force and a reviewer for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Sound Partners program. She holds a master’s degree from the Yale School of Drama and resides with her family near Kansas City.
Dr. Earl A. Grollman
Dr. Earl A. Grollman is a writer, lecturer, and rabbi whose books on coping with loss number over more than 750,000 copies in print. A pioneer in the field of crisis intervention, he appears on many national television programs and his writings have appeared in numerous publications. For further information see www.beacon.org/grollman. Read his posts.
William M. Lamers, Jr., MD
Dr. Lamers, is a physician trained in both psychiatry and child psychiatry who founded one of the first hospice programs in the United States, Hospice of Marin. He has been a member at the University of California, San Francisco and the University of Calgary, in Alberta, Canada. Dr. Lamers has lectured and worked as a hospice consultant in almost every state and in many foreign countries. He is a member and former president of the International Work Group on Death, Dying and Bereavement (IWG), and has served on the bioethics Committees of the Foothills Provincial Hospital (Calgary) and the Los Angeles County Bar Association. He has authored and co-authored numerous professional papers on hospice and related subjects. He is an experienced medical-legal expert witness in matters related to dying, death, pain management, emotional distress and murder. He is the medical consultant to the Hospice Foundation of America. Read his posts here.
Myra MacPherson
Ms. MacPherson is the author of five books, including the Pulitzer prize-nominated Long Time Passing, about the Vietnam War, All Governments Lie: The Life and Times of Rebel Journalist I.F. Stone, and She Came to Live Out Loud, a non-fiction account of a woman's three-yaer battle against breast cancer. She was a highly regarded political reporter at the Washington Post for many years, and has also written for the New York Times and numerous magazines. She sits on the board of directors of the Hospice Foundation of America and is a member of the International Workgroup on Bereavement. She is the widow of Jack Gordon, who served as a Florida state senator and as HFA's CEO and chairman for more than a decade. Read her posts here.
Krista Renenger
Krista Renenger is Editor of HFA’s Hospice and Caregiving Blog. She has worked for Hospice Foundation of America as Web Content Manager since 2000. She began her web career in 1997, working for the Institute of International Finance and later for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Ms. Renenger was also involved on a variety of web projects as Web Development Director with Forum One Communications. She holds a master’s degree in Anthropology from George Washington University and lives outside Reading, Pennsylvania with her family.
Robert Washington, Ph.D., MDiv
A licensed clinical psychologist and ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, Dr. Washington currently works as a chaplain in the Admissions Department of Montgomery Hospice in Maryland. During his 34-year career, he has held various administrative positions in mental health, including Commissioner of Mental Health Services for the District of Columbia and Executive Director for the Community Mental Health Council of Chicago, and William Wendt Center for Loss and Healing in Washington, D.C. For the last 20 years, Dr. Washington has specialized in grief counseling, working with those who are ill, dying and/or bereaved, and training others to do likewise. Dr. Washington is a member of HFA’s Advisory Board. Read his posts here.
Elizabeth Uppman
Elizabeth Uppman is a writer living with her husband and two daughters in Overland Park, KS. Her essays and poems have appeared in Good Housekeeping; Salon.com; Tango; Brain, Child;The Kansas City Star; and various Hospice Foundation of America publications. She has a BA in English from Carleton College. She is currently working on a memoir. Read her posts here.
