WKU News

The WKU College of Health and Human Services InterProfessional Education (IPE) workgroup will be hosting a panel discussion about end of life, ethics, and the New York Times Bestseller book "When Breath Becomes Air" by Paul Kalanithi. The event will take place on Thursday, April 6th from 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. in Jody Richards Auditorium.

The panel is composed of Hosparus Health Barren River staff:

Dr. Douglas Thompson, Medical Director
Dr. William Travis, Medical Director
Melanie Plumb, RN, BSN, Community Director
Mark Hale, Chaplain
Kayla Cain, RN, BSN, Certified Hospice and Palliative Care Nurse
Jessica Byrd, Volunteer Manager

The author's wife, Dr. Lucy Kalanithi, will be joining the discussion via Zoom. The workgroup hopes to bring together educators, students, and practitioners from multiple disciplines to learn about and discuss end of life care with the Hosparus staff.

The following is included in a summary from the book’s publisher, Penguin Random House, "Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. “I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything,” he wrote. “Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: ‘I can’t go on. I’ll go on.’” When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing death and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a brilliant writer who became both."

More information about the book is located here.

For more information about the event email missy.travelsted@wku.edu.