2022 Conference Agenda & Details

Karen Bullock, PhD, MSW 

Professor & Head of the School of Social Work @ North Carolina State University   

Karen Bullock is Professor and Head of the School of Social Work at North Carolina State University, in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. She is a John A. Hartford Faculty Scholar and a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America.  

Karen has more than 25 years of clinical practice experience and her research focuses on serious illness care and cultural competence. She serves on several boards and committees, including the NASW Committee on Racial and Ethnic Diversity (Chair), American Cancer Society Oncology Social Work Research Review Committee (Immediate Past Chair), and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine Roundtable Committee on Quality Care for People with Serious Illness.   

Smriti Rana, MSc

Head - Strategic Programs & Partnerships @ Pallium India   

Smriti Rana heads the Strategic Programs and Partnerships Division at Pallium India, an organization that demonstrates, educates and advocates for the integration of palliative care into mainstream healthcare.  

Her work focuses on ensuring safe access to essential opioid analgesics in India by engaging with the central government and WHO-SEARO. Smriti was an expert for a WHO technical report which provides globally applicable palliative care indicators to assess and monitor provision of palliative care services. She has represented the civil society perspective from Low to Middle Income Countries (LMICs) on various fora, including events hosted by the Vienna NGO Committee (VNGOC) and the UNODC. Smriti is a board member for the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC).   

Trained as a psychologist, Smriti began her work in palliative care in 2000 after losing several family members to cancer in quick succession.  She is passionate about equitable access to pain relief, patient and caregiver advocacy, death literacy, appropriate end of life care and decolonizing healthcare.

Charity Bishop, MD 

Dr. Charity Bishop is a physician-educator and Assistant Professor in the department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of New Mexico (UNM). She is member of the Akimel O’odham tribe of Arizona. She works to improve care for Indigenous patients by educating physicians, students, and staff in best practices of working with this population and launched an Indigenous Health Course at the UNM School of Medicine in 2021.  She provides trauma informed care in primary care and a special clinic for children at risk for developmental delay and their families.  

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Crystal Brown, MD, MA 

Dr. Crystal E. Brown is Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Bioethics and Humanities at UW.  She has previously served as an ethics consultant at Harborview Medical Center (HMC). Her research focuses on racial inequities in communication during serious illness.  She is funded by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities and was recently selected as a Robert Wood Johnson Harold Amos Medical Faculty Program Finalist.  She recently received a UW Department of Medicine Diversity Academic Development Scholarship Award.    

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Emily Cotter, MD, MPH 

Dr. L. Emily Cotter is a Clinician Educator and Assistant Professor in the Division of Palliative Medicine at UNW School of Medicine (SOM). She graduated from the George Washington University SOM, completed her family medicine training at Contra Costa Regional Medical Center, and holds a master’s degree in Public Health from UC Berkeley. She has a long-standing interest in working with populations that have experienced trauma, with specific interest in educating learners about principles of trauma informed care as a means to improve patient-centered clinical care and promote health equity.   

Ellouise Darwin, LSMW 

Ellouise is currently a Palliative Social Worker at the Navajo Area Indian Health Services (IHS) at Gallup Indian Medical Center. She works with Palliative Care patients within the Four Corner Region and strives to provide culturally congruent care for Native American patients. She has worked with the Navajo/Dine’ people at IHS for 29yrs. Ellouise was born and raised on Navajo reservation. Her first language is Navajo/Dine’ and she is Navajo/Dine’. From a young age, she was taught to be a caring and compassionate person, and to have hope and spirituality. Ellouise dedicates all her work in honor of her beloved mom who taught her well.  

Esme Finlay, MD 

Dr. Finlay graduated from the University at Buffalo SOM, completed her training in Internal Medicine, Oncology and Palliative Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and has practiced medicine in New Mexico since 2009.  At UNM, Dr. Finlay is an Associate Professor, Medical Educator, and practices outpatient Palliative Medicine. She is the Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship Director, and directs a longitudinal course for 3rd students which addresses cross-cutting topics in medicine such as communication skills, professional identity formation, diversity, equity and inclusion and trauma informed care.  .

Adrienne Goldberg, PhD, LICSW, APHSW-C 

Since 2018, Adie has served as a clinical social worker at Providence Sacred Heart’s Advanced Heart Failure and Transplant program in Spokane, WA. A published author and sought-after public speaker, she has earned multiple academic and clinical accreditations, including a doctorate in social work – her dissertation focused on delivering palliative care in rural communities. Having worked in medical settings throughout her career, she was a founding member of Asante Regional Medical Center’s palliative care team in Medford, OR. She received the Social Work Hospice & Palliative Care Network Clinical Social Worker of the Year award in 2018.  

Tracy Hirai-Seaton, MSW, LICSW 

Tracy is the new Patient Liaison with UW Medicine Risk Management. She provides support to patients and their family and communicates with teams in events of harm. She is the Co-Chair of UW Medical Center’s (UWMC) EDI Committee, leader in the AAPI Caucus, and trains in interrupting bias and TGNB healthcare. Recently, Tracy served for 23 years as a social worker at HMC and UWMC in the ICU, Orthopedic and ED services. She was the social worker in the COVID-ICU at the start of the pandemic and learned new ways of implementing end of life care. She is the recipient of UWMC’s CARES award and UW Medicine’s Martin Luther King Community Partner for her equity, diversity, and inclusion work.   

Kuang-Ning Huang, MD, MPH 

Kuang-Ning “Annie” Huang, MD, MPH is currently a Family Medicine and Palliative Medicine physician at Gallup Indian Medical Center in Gallup, NM.  Dr. Huang earned an MPH from UC Berkeley and MD from U Vermont.  She completed her Family Medicine Residency training at the U Vermont Medical Center and a two-year Global Health Equity Fellowship (HEAL) at UCSF.  During this fellowship, she worked at Tsehootsooi Medical Center on Navajo Nation and with Last Mile Health, a community health worker-based organization in Liberia. She completed the UW Hospice & Palliative Medicine fellowship, and continued as a Family Medicine faculty member and with the Inpatient Palliative Medicine Consultation Service. 

Debra Jarvis, MDiv, MA 

Debra Jarvis has been a hospice chaplain and is currently a spiritual care provider at UWMC. She is the author of It’s Not About the Hair: And Other Certainties of Life & Cancer (Sasquatch Books, 2007) which was a finalist for the 2009 Washington State Book Awards.  She produced the 12-minute educational film, Palliative Care: Improving Quality of Life for People with Serious Illnesses (www.palliativecarevideo.com). Jarvis received her Master’s in Divinity from Northwest Theological Union, Seattle, 1989; an MA in Christian Arts from New College, Berkeley, 1984; and a BA in Communications from UC Berkeley in 1977.   

Kristine Karvonen, MD 

Kristine is currently a pediatric hematology oncology fellow and health equity fellow at University of Washington/Seattle Children’s hospital. Her research interest is the role of social and contextual determinants of health in survival disparities for children with cancer who belong to historically marginalized racial and ethnic groups. 

Amber Moody, RN, CHPN 

Amber has been a RN for 14 years. In those 14 years she’s been involved in several diverse environments and specialties including; Critical Care, Infusion Therapy, Hemodialysis, Med/Surg, and most recently in Palliative Care as an inpatient program nurse that collaborates with the Telehealth Palliative Care team. She has a certificate in Palliative Care from the Shirley Institute and is a Certified Hospice and Palliative Nurse (CHPN). In her current role, her passion for rural health and palliative care comes together in a beautiful program offered at local critical access hospitals.

Kathy Morsea, MD 

Dr. Morsea trained at UC Davis, including her BS in Environmental Toxicology (1988), MD (1993), family medicine residency (1996), & faculty development fellowship (1997). She has been at Gallup Indian Medical Center since 1999, sat on its traditional medicine committee for 18 years, & started the palliative care program in 2010. She provides palliative care, pain, & family medicine services. She is board certified in Family Medicine & is Hospice Medical Director. Her family is from Crystal, NM & her Navajo primary clan is Red Running Into Water. Dr. Morsea raised 3 children, & is restoring her grandfather’s homestead. She fosters interests in nutrition & traditional medicine, integrating concepts of both into her practice. 

Kevin Murphy, MD, MSW 

Kevin Murphy, MD, MSW, currently serves Providence Institute for Human Caring as the Executive Director for the Palliative Practice Group & TelePC. Dr. Murphy is a strategic Healthcare Leader with experience working with clinical integration and healthcare delivery systems. He is responsible for strategic planning, business development, risk-management, quality improvement, staff recruitment, training, and employee retention. He is well-regarded as a dynamic group motivator with proven accomplishments in the areas of program development and optimization, governance and organizational structure, healthcare system strategy, legal considerations, contracting strategies, and revenue cycle improvements for healthcare systems. 

Amber Piranio, ARNP, RN 

Amber Piranio has been an RN for 15 years and an ARNP for 5 years. Her RN experience was spent primarily in community-based hospice. She spent three years in rural primary care in the ARNP role before transitioning to palliative care in March of 2020. Amber received her MSN from Gonzaga University in 2016 and is currently a DNP candidate with Gonzaga University (projected graduation in August 2022). Her DNP project revolves around the importance of trauma-informed care in palliative care. Amber and her husband, along with their young daughter, live in Lacey, Washington.   

Ruben Rivera-Jackman, MNPL, PSC 

Ruben Rivera-Jackman, MNPL, is a speaker, trainer and nonprofit leadership consultant, and has an accomplished 30+ year career as a nonprofit leader with practical experience in a diverse range of management, program development and service delivery applications. Ruben has a passion for working with and advocating on behalf of vulnerable older adults, including LGBT older adults, and has a natural ability of providing instruction and training for adult learners. He is a certified trainer with the National Resource Center on LGBT Aging and serves as an Instructor at Seattle Central Community College. In May 2021, Ruben Rivera-Jackman was recruited by the UW AgePride Center team as a Training Program Coordinator. 

Megan Shen, PhD 

Megan J Shen, PhD, is an Associate Professor at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Her NIH-funded research focuses on developing interventions to improve engagement in advance care planning, end-of-life care communication, and improve care outcomes in patients with advanced illness. Much of her work seeks to reduce disparities in end-of-life care communication and outcomes among minority patients. Dr. Shen is an American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine Research Scholar and was selected as a National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities Research Institute participant. She has published policy statements and is an op-ed contributor to outlets including USA Today, Huffington Post, Hill Reporter, and Science. Twitter: @meganjshenphd  

Gregg VandeKieft, MD, MA, FAAFP, FAAHPM 

Gregg VandeKieft is the Executive Medical Director for the Providence Institute for Human Caring, supporting palliative care teams across 7 western states. He has practiced full-spectrum family medicine for nearly 20 years. He currently provides inpatient palliative care consults at Providence St. Peter Hospital in Olympia and Providence Centralia Hospital, and provides tele-palliative care support to two critical access hospitals in Eastern WA. Dr. VandeKieft co-chairs the Ethics Committee for Providence’s SW WA Service Area and is a UW Clinical Professor of Family Medicine. He received the 2018 Hastings Center Cunniff-Dixon Physician Award and the 2017 Stuart J. Farber Award for Excellence in Hospice & Palliative Care from the Washington State Hospice and Palliative Care Organization. 

Gary Vaughn, MD 

Dr. Vaughn is the coordinator of the Palliative Care Program at Gallup Indian Medical Center. He obtained his BS from Oregon State University (1997) and completed medical school at Mount Sinai SOM. It was here where he first witnessed the specialty of palliative care in action. Inspired by the compassion and quality of care the palliative care team provided, he sought to make palliative care a part of his practice.  In 2003, Dr. Vaughn returned to the PNW to attend Family Medicine Residency in Boise, ID.  After graduating in 2006, he moved to Gallup, NM to serve as medical officer for the Indian Health Service and has been practicing there ever since.  Dr. Vaughn lives in Pinehaven, NM with his wife and two sons.  

Elizabeth Vig, MD, MPH 

Dr. Vig is an Associate Professor in the UW SOM Division of Gerontology & Geriatric Medicine and is board certified in both geriatrics and palliative care.  Her clinical work in geriatrics and palliative care is based at the Seattle VA Hospital, where she also serves as the Chair of the hospital’s Ethics Committee.  She was a VA National Ethics Fellows, completing a clinical ethics fellowship at the U Chicago.  Her research focuses on how people with serious illness and their families make difficult decisions about the kinds of care they receive toward the end of their lives.  She loves teaching about ethics, is interested in promoting clinical wellness, and runs a monthly seminar for UW geriatric medicine & palliative medicine fellows. 

Nathan Yemane, MSW, LICSW

Nathan Yemane grew up locally, attended Green River Community College, and obtained a MSW from U Oklahoma. Since 2010, Nathan has spent the majority of his work in healthcare as a hospice social worker and social work supervisor. He is currently the founder and managing director of YBG Healthcare in Renton, WA. His company has applied to and is awaiting an outcome from the WA DOH Certificate of Need Program to become the first Black-owned hospice in WA. Nathan has been professionally and personally influenced by the writings of Paulo Freire, W.E.B. DuBois, and Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. In his leisure time, he likes to fly his drone, listen to hip-hop, and spends time with his wife and 2 children.