Compassionate Heart Series: Take Charge of Your Healthcare

Come join us at the Saint Marianne Cope Shrine & Museum for an event focused on empowering you to take charge of your healthcare. Who’s rowing your healthcare boat? Gain resources and practices for navigating healthcare decisions after a life-changing diagnosis. Learn to support whole-person healing, improve communication with medical teams, and walk the journey with confidence. This talk is led by Kristin Barrett-Anderson and Nancy Light, BSN, RN, MPS.

Today is a gift, tomorrow is not a guarantee. Make decisions now regarding your medical care, not during a crisis.

About the Compassionate Heart Series

The Compassionate Heart Series, presented by Saint Marianne Cope Museum in collaboration with Francis House is a series of programs that support the values of presence, respect, and empathy to caregivers and patients.

At the Saint Marianne Cope Museum, we celebrate a woman who was a pioneer in holistic healthcare. Her innovations in hygiene and hospital care, patients’ rights and whole mind, body and spirit healing, are especially relevant today. The compassion, hope, beauty and dignity given to her patients in the hospitals she administered is the foundation that we build upon through providing support services for people experiencing life’s challenges.

The Sister Kathleen Osbelt Center of Francis House uses our experience as a social-model of community care for the dying and our Franciscan values to increase awareness, educate, serve, and support persons with terminal illness and those who care for them. Our core values of compassion, acceptance, respect and dignity guide and inform our care and outreach. We offer community education aligned with empowering a healthy and natural dying and grieving process, and to support compassionate care for people on the journey at the end-of-life.

“The heart is more than an organ – it’s the center of our emotional, social and spiritual well-being.” Dr. Jonathan Fisher; Just One Heart

This ongoing series includes meaningful workshops and gatherings, such as an August book study of “Just One Heart” by Jonathan Fisher, MD, FACC and centers around a special Heart-to-Heart Conversation with Dr. Fisher in September. Each session offers a blend of reflection, storytelling, learning, and community. It is designed to nurture the inner lives of those who so often put others first.

Participants will learn how to align heart and mind in moments of care, navigate emotional challenges like burnout and moral injury, and rediscover meaning in the sacred act of caregiving. Whether you’re a healthcare professional, advocate, or family caregiver, this talk, and all the Compassionate Heart Series programs will offer powerful tools to care for others without losing yourself along the way.

Are you someone who has been dealing with cancer or another serious illness? Are you the spouse, family member, caregiver or provider for a person with a serious illness? Are you at a decision crossroads?

Receiving a serious diagnosis can be overwhelming. It may feel like being adrift in the middle of a medical care ocean with no land in sight. How can we navigate all the information and play an active role in our short and long-term plan of care?

Join us for a half-day retreat focused on how to use value-based decision making and other tools to address important emotional and spiritual and physical care needs during this stressful time.

Our morning session will begin with an emphasis on the importance of individual choice and values. Using examples from actual situations, the presenters will discuss how personal values affect decision-making especially as it relates to difficult healthcare choices for yourself or others. Attendees will have the opportunity to reflect upon and then define the values that mean the most to them. This exercise will form the basis for discussion on the importance of conveying those values to family members and members of the healthcare team.

After a break for lunch, the group will return for discussions around writing a legacy letter, choosing a healthcare agent, and questions to consider when talking with physicians and other healthcare providers about treatment options.

Attendees will be provided with resources and recommendations for navigating their healthcare journey, receiving and determining spiritual, emotional and physical support and opening a conversation with loved ones and friends.

Presenters:

Kristin Barrett-Anderson

Minister, End-of-Life Doula, Reiki Master & Teacher
Executive Director, Saint Marianne Cope Shrine & Museum
Creator, Empathy in Action, CNY

Kristin Barrett-Anderson is the Director of the Saint Marianne Cope Shrine & Museum, a sponsored ministry of the Sisters of St. Francis. She is the creator of Empathy in Action; a collection of programs addressing current issues, with the intention of teaching empathetic practices to use in all phases of life’s journey.

Nancy Light, BS, RN, MPS has worked in healthcare for over 45 years. Her early career was spent at Crouse Hospital. She held positions as Nurse Manager, Coordinator of Information Systems and lastly as Chief Nursing Officer. In 1998 she joined the staff of Francis House initially as Resident Care Coordinator, then Chief Operating Officer, and most recently serving as Executive Director until her retirement in December 2020. Ms. Light serves on the Professional Advisory Committees for Nascentia Health and Hospice of Central New York and the Fingerlakes. Ms. Light continues to be guest faculty for the Nursing Division, Purcell School of Professional Studies at LeMoyne College. She has lectured on Servant Leadership, Compassion Fatigue and Resilience and The Social Model of Hospice Care. She also serves on the College of Nursing Professional Advisory Board. Ms. Light is certified in Level One Advanced Care Planning and has presented End of Life Care Planning to community groups and individuals struggling with this topic. Ms. Light continues to present grief retreats in the community as requested.