On October 8th, it will be 4 years since Elly Sheykhet’s daughter Alina was killed by her ex-boyfriend, Saul and Joe spoke with Elly Sheykhet to see how she is coping and continuing to keep Alina’s memory alive.
Alina Sheykhet was a student at the University of Pittsburgh and was killed by Matthew Darby at her off-campus apartment Oct. 8, 2017. She was 20 years old.
Darby was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in October.
Elly Sheykhet, said Alina will always shine through a foundation called Alina’s Light. It raises money for causes that were important to her, like performing arts, children and animals.
The foundation also has a focus on domestic violence awareness. Court records show Darby was served a protection from abuse order a short time before he murdered Alina.
Her parents are also working to get Alina’s Law passed to protect others.
Becoming a hospice nurse opened her eyes and changed how she saw her world. She discusses some of the wonderful people she cared for until they passed, and the lessons she learned about life through death.
Saul Ebema: Florence Wald received a Bachelor of Arts degree in physiology and sociology from Mount Holyoke College in 1938 and immediately enrolled in the 30-month nursing program at Yale University.
However, by the time Florence went to Yale University School of Nursing, there was beginning to be a shift in philosophy of care where the primary focus was on the disease, and not on the patient. This disease orientation was a result of the rapidly growing knowledge in medical science that was overshadowing everything else at the time.
You are listening to Personhood. The story of Florence Wald and the Hospice movement. This is episode 2- “the care of the terminally ill in the 1940s and 50s” and I am your host- Saul Ebema.
As American lifestyle shifted into high gear after the great depression, dance and music styles did as well. The upbeat tempos of swing music seemed to match the mood of the country. As the economy boomed, the people danced.
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Saul Ebema: While the dance music got louder and fun, world events got louder and dangerous.
The Second World War had already started in September of 1939 in Europe. At first, the United States remained officially neutral in the conflict.
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Saul Ebema: Even if the draft was not popular, in hindsight, it helped the United States to be ready in case of an attack. It was not long after that the Japanese empire ended America’s isolation from the war with a surprise attack.
While Americans were going through their day, all of a sudden, all the media channels were interrupted. Those who were listening to the baseball game between the Dodgers and the Giants over the radio where interrupted by this message.
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Saul Ebema: Japan had staged a surprise attack on American military installations in the Pacific. The most devastating strike came at Pearl Harbor. In a two-hour attack, Japanese warplanes sank or damaged 18 warships and destroyed 164 aircrafts. Over 2,400 servicemen and civilians lost their lives. President Roosevelt knew that something had to be done.
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Saul Ebema: As American soldiers marched on to war, the president acted as pastor in chief and led the entire country through prayer.
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Saul Ebema: And off- America went to war.
Despite of the fact that America was in the second world war, the medical arena in the early 1940s was filled scientific discovery and a growing faith in medical authority. That faith in medicine was even strengthened by the development of injectable penicillin.
This new development showed promise in medical progress. Then there was the development of more anti-tuberculosis therapies that enabled the disease to be controlled. Not long after that, sanatoriums for tuberculosis patients were no longer necessary.
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Barb Newton: As medicine progressed, death came to be discussed only in terms of its avoidance, and any other conversation on the topic, at least from the American Medical Association, was practically nonexistent. Instead, articles regarding terminal diseases focused on symptoms and new treatment options rather than outcomes or mortality rates. Despite acknowledgment by at least some specialties in the medical profession that death was a part of patient care, the American Medical Association at that time was not willing to make this concession of inadequacy.
Saul Ebema: As a powerful coalition representing the entirety of the medical profession, the American Medical Association was the medical authority of the time, and their refusal to acknowledge dying patients greatly influenced society’s perception of terminal care.41 In the eyes of the medical profession, however, if it could not be visibly cured, it was not a medical concern, and discussion of such conditions was seen as counterproductive to medical efforts. To acknowledge dying was to admit that medicine had failed, and that the authority which the public had assigned to the medical profession was not deserved.
Veronica Drase:With the heavy focus on disease during that time, Florence was dismayed that nursing was lost in the treatment of the disease, and she questioned if she had made a major career mistake.
While still questioning her choice of career, she went on to work for the Visiting Nurse Service of New York. Initially, the Visiting Nurse Service of New York was patient focused. That is what was attractive to Florence.
However, after their reorganization, the Visiting Nurse Service of New York took on a physician driven model of care that focused more on the disease than the patient. Florence found physicians were unprepared to accept her vision of care. She remained with the Visiting Nurse Service of New York for 2 years (1941-43) but left dissatisfied. For Florence, the art of nursing was being lost to the science of medicine, so she quit.
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Saul Ebema: Florence had not anticipated how nursing would be heavily influenced by the medical model that focused on the disease and symptom treatment rather than the patient focused model of care. She left the nursing profession in 1944. Around that time, the Second World War was raging, and it was a difficult emotional time. Florence wondered if her beliefs about life and medicine fit the times.
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Barb Newton:After that, Florence did the unthinkable and enlisted in the Army. She felt an obligation to help the military men and women who were fighting the atrocities of Hitler. Ironically, Florence was assigned to a small maternity ward at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Eighteen months later, the war ended, and so did her military service.
Veronica Drase: During her 8-year sabbatical from nursing, Florence became a clinical research assistant at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital on a surgical metabolism unit. It was here that she met her husband to-be, Henry Wald, one of Florence’s research subjects who was in officer’s candidate school.
Florence and Henry dated 3 years before he proposed marriage to her in 1948. Henry had completed his military service and had graduated from the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in NYC with a degree in engineering. Because Florence’s father was dying, her mother had breast cancer, and her professional path was uncertain, she declined Henry’s proposal and there- the relationship mutually ended.
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Saul Ebema: In Florence’s years as a researcher at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital, the medical landscape was changing. In 1946, the Hill-Burton Act was passed and with it came the campaign to build more hospitals.
Barb Newton:With the building of hundreds of hospitals around the country due to the Hill Burton Act, hospital care for the sick became the norm instead of home care. This led to a new turn of events because more people started dying in the…
Saul Ebema: In Latin, the word hospice means to host a guest or stranger; Florence Wald, centered her life on hosting a dignified end of life process that honored the patient’s personhood. Her ideas around death and dying led to the formation of the first modern hospice in the United States in 1974. Because of her, there are thousands of hospice programs around the country- serving millions of patients and families.
Florence’s pioneering efforts have forever changed the heart of the American society to accept and engage in an end-of-life process that she described as “appropriate, understanding, and natural.”
And in 1998, she took her rightful place in the National Women’s Hall of Fame with legends such as Eleanor Roosevelt, Helen Keller, Harriet Tubman, and Florence’s idol, Lillian Wald.
You are now listening to Personhood! The story of Florence Wald and the Hospice movement – Episode One and I am your host Saul Ebema
On April 6, 1917, just 13 days before Florence Wald was born, the United States decided to enter World War I. President Woodrow Wilson gave a speech to Congress on April 2, 1917 asking for them to declare war on Germany. In his speech he said that the U.S. would go to war to “fight for the ultimate peace of the world.” And on April 6, 1917- the US military marched to war.
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Saul Ebema: When World War I initially broke out across Europe in 1914, it was mainly between the central powers led by Germany, Austria, and Hungary against the Allied countries led by Britain, France, and Russia.
At the start of the war, President Woodrow Wilson declared that the United States would remain neutral.
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Saul Ebema: Just as America went into the battlefield against Germany, on April 19th, 1917, Florence Wald was born into a German family to Mr. and Mrs. Schorske in a divided world. Although the Schorske family were second-generation Americans, their values and culture were heavily influenced by their German heritage.
Before the war started, the Schorskes spoke German at home so the children would be bilingual. However, during the war, fear of isolation turned them to English speaking.
Deeply rooted in Bronx, New York, The Schorskes exposed their children from an early age to the ideas of kindness, love, care, and equality for all.
Barb Newton: In interviews and presentations, Florence often said that her parents were members of the socialist party and as such, she was exposed to a variety of social justice-based causes from a young age.
Her parents often volunteered to teach English to the immigrants on New York’s Lower East Side and raised Florence and her brother Carl to show concern for others and advocate for social justice.
Saul Ebema: This upbringing deeply rooted in the ideas of universal equality and compassion, would ingrain Florence with deep-seated beliefs about the world and how people should fundamentally be treated. These concepts would later directly influence her practices around hospice care.
Danelle Shoemaker:Despite of her generally positive upbringing, life was not always perfect in Florence’s early childhood. She experienced a number of health issues as a young child that required frequent hospitalizations.
In 1926, when Florence was 7 years old, her family traveled to Florida to facilitate Florence’s recovery from an episode of life-threatening pneumonia.
On the return trip home, they stopped in Washington, DC, and there Florence was diagnosed with scarlet fever.
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Brian Mackender: Scarlet Fever was a leading cause of death in children during the early 20th century. When a child was found to have scarlet fever, they went through weeks of isolation in the hospital.
Saul Ebema: For 7-year-old Florence, this meant weeks of isolation in Garfield Hospital. Florence later described that experience as being trapped in a “vintage Civil War hospital.”
Barb Newton:This was the first time Florence had been separated from her family, and it was a challenge for everyone. Her private nurse, Eunice Biller, from Richmond, Virginia, cared for Florence like she was her own child. Eunice Biller understood the impact of scarlet fever on Florence and did everything to keep her spirits up. In addition to her care, she provided spiritual support, music therapy, art and craft and toys for Florence to play with.
Saul Ebema: Florence would later reflect that it was the care of her nurse, Eunice Biller that made her “feel like a person, not a patient with a contagious disease.”
Danelle Shoemaker: When Florence’s mother visited, due to the isolation policy at the hospital, she was not allowed into the hospital. But Eunice Biller, her nurse would carry Florence to the window, where Florence would wave to her mother 3 floors down.
From this time forward, Florence was committed to becoming a nurse. Her favorite pastime as a child became playing nurse to the dolls she had at home.
Saul Ebema: It was that kind of compassionate care which valued the sense of personhood that would later evolve into the hospice philosophy of care.
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Saul Ebema: When Florence was 10 years old, the family traveled to Germany to reconnect with their roots and visit with the extended family. She loved it there.
In 1932, Florence and her mother returned to visit family in Berlin- this time, they found an entirely different Germany. The Nazis were promoting anti-Semitic activities and organizing pro-Hitler rallies. The country seemed to be filled with unexpected outbursts of hate and violence towards the Jewish citizens.
This validated what the Schorskes had been reading in the U.S. papers and led them to help Jewish families immigrate to America.
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Saul Ebema: In 1934 when Florence was 17 years old, she decided to go to college.
Barb Newton: From a young age, Florence was always a determined girl. So, when she broke the news about her desire to go to college to her father, he was not happy. Her father, like many men of his generation did not believe that women should go to college, and he discouraged her from doing so.
Remember, this was also the period of the great depression in America, but her family had the means and could afford her college education.
Saul Ebema: Florence was not the person to easily take no for an answer. After some convincing, Florence’s dad allowed her to attend Barnard College and live at home.
Barb Newton: Florence however, had another idea. She chose to attend—Mount Holyoke College—which meant she would live hours away from home in South Hadley, MA. Her father was not happy with her college choice, but he allowed Florence to begin a new and independent life.
Saul Ebema: Meanwhile, the American healthcare system that she would later reform, was being hit hard by the g…
A Vice President of Hospice UK, David is also a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and has been a board member of the European Association for Palliative Care.
David founded the International Observatory on End-of-Life Care at Lancaster University in 2003, and has wide ranging interests in the history and global development of palliative care. David remains involved in studies of the global mapping of palliative care development, and in research to inform policy and service implementation in palliative and end of life care.
His monograph on the history of palliative medicine from the nineteenth century, entitled To Comfort Always, was published by Oxford University Press in 2016. With a particular knowledge of the life and work of Dame Cicely Saunders, he has edited her letters and selected publications and his biography of her Cicely Saunders: A Life and Legacy was published to mark the centenary of her birth in 2018.
He was appointed Professor of Sociology at Sheffield Hallam University in 1993 and in 1995 became Professor of Medical Sociology at the University of Sheffield. He moved to Lancaster University in 2003 and in 2005, and with support from the Irish Hospice Foundation, took up the position of Visiting Professor in Hospice Studies at Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin, where he worked on the creation of the All-Ireland Institute for Hospice and Palliative Care.
David started working at the University of Glasgow in October 2009, where he was Director of the Dumfries Campus for six years before taking up his current role.
He was awarded the OBE in 2017 for services to end of life care research.
In Today’s follow up episode, Joe and Saul once again talk remotely with Dr. Phillip D. Williams about his incredible life’s journey. Dr. Phil is currently a chaplain at the VA Healthcare Center in Temple Texas. He has also authored many books and is passionate about end-of-life care. In this episode, you will learn a little bit about his life’s journey
Symbols are objects that take on a deeper meaning for the person grasping them. Every symbol points beyond itself to a reality for which it stands.
Symbols can be both corporate and private, easily recognized but contextualized in the individual experience.
Rituals in End of Life Care
Symbols are often (though not always) tangible, representational, and passive; rituals, on the other hand, are active, responsive, and collective. Rituals, for the sake of this study, are a collection of actions.
A ritual is a stereotyped sequence of activities involving gestures, words, and objects, performed in a sequestered place, and designed to influence preternatural entities or forces on behalf of the actors’ goals and interests.
Rituals may be seasonal, hallowing a culturally defined moment of change in the climatic cycle or the inauguration of an activity such as planting, harvesting, or moving from winter to summer pasture; or they may be contingent, held in response to an individual or collective crisis.
Symbols are often used in rituals. Consider a commonplace, mundane example. The simple action of planting a tree has a routine—prepare the soil, dig the hole, place the tree, cover with soil, water, etc. This may not seem like much of a ritual, but when that planting is done in memory of someone who has died within a community that celebrates the life that has gone before, and the individuals participate in the planting, this simple act becomes a ritual, a ritual of remembrance.
Rituals are active and may be rooted in tradition or they are active, built on the simple action and then assigned metaphorical significance.
