Medical Decision-Making

End of Life Care

National Speakers Bureau Presents:

Aging Populations

Harry van Bommel is the author of 40 books with over a dozen in health care and caregiving. With first-hand experiences caring for his grandfather, mother and father, van Bommel provided personal care as well as dealt with the ethical decision making of end of life issues.

He speaks with a coherent patient-centred philosophy using facts, stories, humour and practical memorable examples. His approach is from the perspective of those who receive the services. In other words, he speaks to us about how we can get the care we need for the people we love and for ourselves. Van Bommel’s new book and speaking topic, The Six Steps to Patient-Centred Care (for release fall 2011), divides his six steps for six different audiences. He emphasizes that each group needs to do their six steps to make true integrated patient-centred health care possible.

Dr. Brian Goldman (pictured above) has been traveling across Canada talking tough about the health crisis baby boomers are about to face. According to Statistics Canada, seniors are the fastest growing age group in Canada. Many roots of the problem are well known, primarily cutbacks to medical school enrolment that took MDs out of the system. It is a problem being rectified but will take years to correct. Moreover, in the current fee-for-service assembly line type of primary health care many GPs deliver, there is simply never enough time to properly look after the increasingly complex needs of frail seniors. The result is that a growing number of seniors, with increasingly neglected medical problems, turn to the ER when their health takes a turn for the worst. Clearly, we are in need of more palliative care doctors and nurses, more in-patient beds and more hospices.

Do This! Do That! Now Do It Differently?

Maureen McTeer explains how advances in science and medicine make our choices and decisions about end of life more complex. Legal, ethical and social issues abound when medicine has the power to keep us alive in a state of living death, while public policy, law and regulations often lag behind practice and popular sentiment. As a lawyer, university lecturer and health law expert, McTeer has researched the issues surrounding end of life and advises people how to best keep control of medical and personal decision making when it matters most.

Treating An Aging Population André Picard provides an insider’s perspective on the Canadian health-care system and how it works. As the public health reporter for The Globe and Mail, he has seen it from all angles and knows what the system needs. Picard would like to see more

investment in home care and respite for caregivers because it’s better to invest less up front than have expensive health care issues at the end. An award-winning journalist, he also draws from personal experience, having taken care of his elderly parents for almost 20 years. A seasoned communicator who uses a conversational style to reach his audience, Picard often combines science and research with personal experience and interviews. He puts everything in context with real stories showing what health care professionals face on a daily basis.

NATIONAL SPEAKERS BUREAU YOUR SOURCE FOR CANADA’S BEST SPEAKERS

HEAD OFFICE 1 800 661 4110 TORONTO OFFICE 1 800 360 1073www.nsb.com speakers@nsb.com

Voice of the Nation

Libby Znaimer is the producer and host of The Zoomer Report, and the author of a monthly column by the same name, focused on health and wellness for baby boomers. Her company, Zoomer Media, is geared to the 45+ demographic, “Boomers with Zip”, and the younger people who love them.

Znaimer covers everything from the latest in palliative care, to debates on ending life with euthanasia. Her listeners and readers provide a lot of feedback, so she is always in touch with our generation’s biggest concerns. According to Znaimer, in today’s era, having information and communicating it clearly is imperative. A two-time cancer survivor, Znaimer is committed to giving back – volunteering is one of her favourite topics. As for her own work, she’s on the board of

Pancreatic Cancer Canada, and a Co-Chair of Princess Margaret Hospital’s Walk to End Women’s Cancers. Armed with a new vision of aging, Znaimer is on a quest to live as well as possible and wants to help others do the same.

National Speakers Bureau - Health eNews

Dr. John Sloan is a family physician and author. He treats frail elderly people in their own homes, and has published two books on the subject. Sloan thinks fragile seniors’ needs are not being met by modern health care. When we focus on rescue vs. prevention, when we rush people to hospital because their caregivers can’t cope, and bury them under mountains of medication that can’t help them, we cause two separate problems. First, the people suffer for no good reason, and second, the system groans under the burden of overcrowding and cost. So what’s the answer? Sloan makes the case for gentler, more directly responsible care at home, once an elderly person is ready to minimize drugs and stay away from aggressive critical rescue. To get there from here, requires an old mindset to change: The stubborn belief in struggling against illness and death with medicine and technology to the bitter end, as it stands in the way of giving them love and comfort when they need it most. Once we let go of that struggle mentality and pay attention to what most very old people are looking for, everybody benefits.

The Zoomer Report for 45+

John Wright is the Senior Vice President for the Canadian Public Affairs Division of Ipsos Reid Corp. In addition to his responsibilities

involving tactical and strategic research for communications purposes, he also draws on the latest findings of Ipsos Reid’s annual poll on The Most Respected Corporations in Canada, to provide insight on what Canada’s leaders are thinking and planning,

specifically relating to health and hospital care.

Shifting Demographics Ending Unnecessary Critical Rescue

David Foot is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Toronto, and co-author of the best-selling book, Boom Bust & Echo: Profiting from the Demographic Shift in the 21st Century. He is an outspoken and controversial demographics expert who can bring to life demographic statistics and make the aging of society relevant to any group. Foot explores how changing demographics, especially the aging of the massive boomer generation, and the entry of their children; the echo generation, into the market and workplace, will redefine society’s needs. Foot contends that just knowing demographics explains two-thirds of everything -- including, health, corporate organization, marketing, career planning, the stock market, housing, education, recreation, leisure, or social and global trends. Change like aging, can’t be avoided, but it can be anticipated and managed. With an understanding of this, care givers have a strong foundation upon which to build an acceptance for past circumstances along with a truer vision for the future.

HEAD OFFICE 1 800 661 4110 TORONTO OFFICE 1 800 360 1073www.nsb.com speakers@nsb.com

NATIONAL SPEAKERS BUREAU YOUR SOURCE FOR CANADA’S BEST SPEAKERS