Diversity and End-of-Life Care Panelists

Samira K. Beckwith, LCSW, FACHE
Samira K. Beckwith is President and CEO of Hope HealthCare Services, headquartered in Fort Myers, Florida, where she is a leader in improving health care on the local, state and national levels. She has served in this position since 1991.

Under her leadership, Hope has moved from serving a small number of people in Fort Myers to caring for more than 1,800 people each day in an eight-county area. She has led Hope to receive national awards in recent years for quality service and innovation.

She has twice served on the Board of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, focusing on public policy, education, diversity, cultural issues and better access to care. Ms. Beckwith is a frequent participant in national health policy forums and has provided expert testimony before government bodies, including the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.

The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) has named her an NASW Social Work Pioneer in recognition of her exceptional contributions to the profession. In 2007, she was appointed to the Board of Directors of the American Society of Pain Educators (ASPE), where she works to raise the overall level of quality inpatient care.

Ms. Beckwith received her Masters of Social Work of Arts in Sociology from The Ohio State University College of Social Work. She was among the first inductees into the Alumni Hall of Fame, in recognition of her significant contributions to the profession.

She served as Director of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization from 2003-2006, and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the National Hospice Foundation.

Sandy Chen Stokes, RN, PHN, MSN
Sandy Chen Stokes, a geriatric nurse specialist currently working as a public health nurse in El Dorado County, California, is founder and Executive Director of the Chinese American Coalition for Compassionate Care (CACCC), the only organization in the nation devoted to end-of-life issues for Chinese Americans. Since the coalition was formed in late 2005, membership has grown to more than 60 organizations working together to improve end-of-life care in the Chinese American community.

Prior to establishing the CACCC, Ms. Chen Stokes modified the California Advance Care Directive to better fit Chinese cultural norms and translated it into Chinese. She then promoted the use of the Advance Health Care Directive (AHCD) and other end-of-life concerns in the Chinese media and at conferences around the nation. She also recruited and trained Chinese volunteers to administer the AHCD throughout the greater San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose Bay Area. Ms. Chen Stokes provided editorial oversight for the Chinese translation of Bill Moyer's "Finding Our Way" series and worked with the World Journal, a national Chinese newspaper with a circulation of over 350,000, to publish "Finding Our Way" in 15 weekly installments in the World Journal's weekly Sunday magazine.

Ms. Chen Stokes served on the committee that designed the "Quality of Life Handbook", the first end-of-life related Chinese resource book ever to be published in the United States. She also wrote and narrated a video on hospice and the AHCD in Mandarin. Over 10,000 copies of the video have been distributed worldwide on DVD, with a 50-page booklet. For more than two years, she served on the National Advisory Committee of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.

Kenneth J. Doka, PhD, MDiv
Kenneth J. Doka is a Professor of Gerontology at the Graduate School of The College of New Rochelle and Senior Consultant to the Hospice Foundation of America. A prolific author and editor, Dr. Doka’s books include Living with Grief: Children and Adolescents; Living with Grief: Before and After Death; Death, Dying and Bereavement: Major Themes in Health and Social Welfare (a four-volume edited work); Pain Management at the End-of-Life: Bridging the Gap between Knowledge and Practice; Living with Grief: Ethical Dilemmas at the End of Life; Living with Grief: Alzheimer’s Disease; Living with Grief: Coping with Public Tragedy; Men Don’t Cry, Women Do: Transcending Gender Stereotypes of Grief; Living with Grief: Loss in Later Life; Disenfranchised Grief: Recognizing Hidden Sorrow; Living with Life Threatening Illness; Children Mourning, Mourning Children; Death and Spirituality; Living with Grief: After Sudden Loss; Living with Grief: When Illness is Prolonged; Living with Grief: Who We Are, How We Grieve; Living with Grief: At Work, School and Worship; Living with Grief: Children, Adolescents and Loss; Caregiving and Loss: Family Needs, Professional Responses; AIDS, Fear and Society; Aging and Developmental Disabilities; and Disenfranchised Grief: New Directions, Challenges, and Strategies for Practice. In addition to these books, he has published over 100 articles and book chapters. Dr. Doka is editor of both Omega: The Journal of Death and Dying and HFA’s Journeys: A Newsletter for the Bereaved.

Dr. Doka was elected President of the Association for Death Education and Counseling in 1993. In 1995, he was elected to the Board of Directors of the International Work Group on Dying, Death and Bereavement and served as chair from 1997-1999. The Association for Death Education and Counseling presented him with an Award for Outstanding Contributions in the Field of Death Education in 1998. In 2006, Dr. Doka was grandfathered in as a Mental Health Counselor under New York’s first state licensure of counselors.

Dr. Doka has keynoted conferences throughout North America as well as Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand, and is a frequent guest on television and radio news programs. Dr. Doka is an ordained Lutheran minister.

Wanda Henry-Jenkins, MHS
Wanda Henry-Jenkins is a multifaceted human service and healthcare professional: writer, bereavement counselor, educator and manager, minister, nurse, motivational and inspirational speaker. She is certified in cultural competency. Rev. Jenkins is a published author and was the department editor of cross-cultural perspective for bereavement magazine. Rev. Jenkins speaks at local, national and international conferences on issues related to end of life, diversity, spiritual care, bereavement, grief and mourning. She believes it is important to better understand the unique cross-cultural perspectives that are inherent in a multi-racial, multinational country, and how cultures blend and borrow traditions from each other.

Currently, Rev. Jenkins is the Manager of Bereavement Services at VITAS Innovative Hospice Care in the Chicago Northwest Program. She is the recipient of the 1990 Miss Clairol Take Charge Award; the 1994 National Association of Social Worker’s Public Citizen Award; the 1995 National Council of Negro Women Tribute to Black Women Community Leaders, and 1996 University of Pennsylvania Black Health Conference Nursing Award. Rev. Jenkin’s books include Hard Work: A Guided Journal for Survivors of Murder Victims, 1999, and a Guided Workbook for Adolescent Motherless Daughters, 2005.

Richard Payne, MD
Richard Payne is Director of the Duke Institute on Care at the End-of-Life and an internationally known expert in the areas of pain relief, palliative medicine, oncology and neurology. The Institute seeks to create knowledge and rediscover wisdoms about life’s end through interdisciplinary research and scholarship, teaching, and community outreach.

A product of the public high school system in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Dr. Payne graduated from Yale University in 1973 and Harvard Medical School in 1977. He completed post-graduate training in internal medicine at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, and in neurology at the New York Hospital-Cornell University Medical College. He completed a fellowship in neuro-oncology and pain management at Memorial Sloan Kettering, subsequently joining the faculty there. Dr. Payne was Chief of Neurology at the Cincinnati VA Medical Center, and Vice-Chairman of the Department of Neurology at the University of Cincinnati Medical School from 1987-1992. In 1992, Dr. Payne became Chief of the Pain and Symptom Management Section and Professor of Neurology at the University of Texas, Department of Neuro-Oncology, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. He then returned to Memorial Sloan-Kettering as Chief, Pain and Palliative Care Service and Anne B. Tandy Chair in Neurology.

Dr. Payne has authored or co-authored more than 250 peer-reviewed papers, invited reviews, book chapters, abstracts and articles. He has co-edited two books: Current Therapy of Pain, with Dr. Kathleen M. Foley and Assessment and Treatment of Cancer Pain with Drs. C. Stratton Hill and Richard B. Patt. He has lectured throughout the world on various topics related to research and clinical aspects of pain management and palliative medicine and end-of-life care.

Dr. Payne has received a Distinguished Service Award from the American Pain Society, the Humanitarian Award from the Urban Resources Institute, the Janssen Excellence in Pain Award, the Operation Rainbow/PUSH Pioneer Award, and the John Bonica Award of the Eastern Pain Association.

Dr. Payne has served on numerous panels and advisory committees of local, state and national organizations. He has served on the Board of Directors of the American Pain Society and the American Academy of Pain Medicine. Dr. Payne served on the Institute of Medicine committee that evaluated the quality of health care delivered at the end-of-life, and wrote the influential report, Approaching Death: Improving Care at the End of Life (National Academy Press, 1997). He has served on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation National Advisory Committee Promoting Excellence in End-of-Life Care, and was an advisor to the American Medical Association’s Education for Physicians on End-of-Life Care (EPEC) Project. He has given expert testimony to the U.S. Senate, Congressional Black Caucus National Brain Trust, and the President’s Cancer Panel in the areas of pain management healthcare access disparities in cancer care, palliative medicine and end of life care.

He also serves on the editorial board of The Journal of Pain (the official journal of the American Pain Society), The Journal of Pain and Symptom Management and Medical Crossfire.

Dr. Payne has been a leader of both national and international projects addressing health care access disparities in medically underserved populations, especially as they relate to cancer and HIV/AIDS patients requiring palliative and end-of-life care.

Currently, Dr. Payne serves as the chair of the board of FHSSA (Foundation for Hospices in Sub-Saharan Africa) of The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization. He is also a board member of the National Coalition of Cancer Survivors. He is co-chair of the Palliative Care Steering Committee of the National Quality Forum (NQF) and is a member of the Long Term Care Commission of the NQF.

Paul C. Rosenblatt, PhD
Paul C. Rosenblatt has a PhD in Psychology and is Morse-Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor of Family Social Science at the University of Minnesota. His recent books include Two in a Bed: The Social System of Couple Bed Sharing; African American Grief (with Beverly R. Wallace; Parental Grief: Narratives of Loss and Relationship; and Help Your Marriage Survive the Death of a Child. He is completing work on a book tentatively entitled Shared Obliviousness in Family Systems and he is also working on a book on how African-American novelists have characterized the effects of white racism on African-American families. Among his current research projects are a study (with John R. Barner) of how couple relationships are influenced by the death of a parent of one of the partners, and a study (with Liz Wieling) of how people experience and understand intimacy in their closest relationship.

Carlos Sandoval-Cros, MD
Carlos Sandoval-Cros is a psychiatrist in private practice and an Episcopal priest. Dr. Sandoval-Cros earned his medical degree from the Catholic University Mater et Magistra in the Dominican Republic. After graduating from medical school, he attended seminary, went to Quito, Ecuador as a medical missionary and was ordained a priest. Dr. Sandoval-Cros returned to Miami and completed his psychiatry residency at University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital and took a position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and psychiatrist for The Courtelis Center for Psychosocial Oncology. He became director of the Center in 1998. After 10 years at the University of Miami he went into private practice, working mostly in geriatric psychiatry. Dr. Sandoval-Cros also serves as pastor of Saint Simon’s Episcopal Church, a bicultural congregation in southwest Miami.