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What is palliative care? Why is it important? And how can someone who is not a nurse or health professional effectively advocate for their loved one, whether family or friend, when they are diagnosed with an advanced illness or facing dying? Robin Bennett Kanarek is a registered nurse who had her own experience with losing a son to a serious illness too early in his life and struggled with ensuring that he got the care he needed, when he needed it. She took the lessons she learned from that experience and has shared them in a book titled Living Well with a Serious Illness, a Guide to Palliative Care for Mind, Body, and Spirit, published by Johns Hopkins Press. HealthCetera in the Catskills host Diana J. Mason, PhD, RN, FAAN, talked with Ms. Kanarek about Diana’s own challenging experience with seeking palliative care for her husband and what readers can learn from Robin’s book.

This interview first aired live on HealthCetera in the Catskills on WIOX Radio on June 21, 2023.

What is palliative care? Why is it

Image by National Cancer Institute from Unsplash

One of the joys of getting older is anticipating that you’ll be eligible for Medicare. You think that your spending on health care will go down because you’ve paid into this program throughout your working life. But a quick assessment of how much you’re spending on health care even when on Medicare is not quite the rosy picture people anticipate. AARP has been following the out of pocket spending on the traditional Medicare program for about 8 years and their most recent analysis, Beneficiaries in Traditional Medicare: Out-of-Pocket Spending for Health Care is concerning. HealthCetera Host Diana Mason, PhD, RN, discusses the report  with Claire Noel-Miller, Senior Strategic Policy Advisor for AARP’s Public Policy Institute. This podcast first aired on HealthCetera in the Catskills on WIOX Radio on June 14, 2023.

Image by National Cancer Institute from Unsplash One

Image by Hush Naidoo Jade Photography from Unsplash

Since 2002, we’ve had lots of robust research documenting the impact of inadequate staffing on patient complications and even death. But only California has managed to pass a law that mandates minimum nurse staffing levels. Opposition to such mandates always includes hospital administrators, but it has sometimes included members of the nursing community itself. Recently, Dr. Andrea Brassard wrote a blog about some shifts that may be happening as a federal bill to address staffing has been introduced into Congress.  Diana Mason, PhD, RN, FAAN, talked about this with Andrea Brassard, PhD, RN, FAAN, a nurse practitioner and Associate Professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore School of Nursing. Dr. Brassard has served as a Senior Policy Advisor in the Public Policy Institute at AARP where she worked on the Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action initiative to foster implementation of the recommendations in a National Academy of Medicine report on nursing. She also served as Director of Health Policy at the American Nurses Association.  This interview first aired on HealthCetera in the Catskills on WIOX Radio on May 31, 2023.

Image by Hush Naidoo Jade Photography from