Monday, August 5, 2019
Remembering Kathy Brandt: Hospice and Palliative Care Advocate
by Christian Sinclair (@ctsinclair)As some of you may already now, we lost a great voice and energy in our field of palliative care and hospice yesterday, August 4th, when Kathy Brandt died at home with her wife,Kimberly Acquaviva and son, Greyson. Kathy was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in January of 2019. Kathy most recently worked on the National Consensus Project Guidelines, 4th edition, as the writer and editor, which was released in 2018. She had over 30 years experience in the aging and end-of-life issues and was helpful to many organizations as the principal and founder of the kb group.
In addition to all that work over the past 30 years, her most lasting impact is likely to be her own narrative, which she shared online with all of us. Through Kathy's social media posts and the insight of Kim and Greyson as they walked her journey with her, we have been able to follow along and see the ups and downs of serious illness and end of life.
I was able to work alongside Kathy in a few instances and she always had the energy, wit and insight to improve the situation and manage the project. I will miss her greatly, and I know a lot of you will too. I hope that we can all find a way to include her in the work we do and remember the contributions she made to promoting excellence in the work that we do.
We can all probably help a little by contributing to their GoFundMe. I'm sure we can get it over $100,000. It is at $81,842 right now.