Moving Palliative and End-of-life Care Forward

May 17-21, 2010
Tory Building TB 95
University of Alberta
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Deepthi Mohankumar, BA (English/Psychology), MA and M.Phil (Clinical Psychology), PhD (Gerontology)

Post-doctoral fellow working with Donna Wilson at the University of Alberta. Deepthi Mohankumar has a Bachelors degree in English and Psychology from Avinashilingam Deemed University in India, a Master of Arts degree from Bharathiar University in India, a Master of Philosophy in Clinical Psychology degree from the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in India. She undertook her doctoral work at the University of Kansas, where she obtained a PhD in Gerontology. She consistently was placed as top of her class, with an overall PhD GPA of 4.0. Her 2009 dissertation examined the influences of age and culture on decisions made at the end of life, entitled: Prospective end-of-life decision-making: A study of Asian Indian Hindu older and younger adults. This study utilized a mixed-methods approach to learn more about the process of decision-making when faced with terminal illness. She is currently working on several projects with Dr. Donna Wilson, including rural versus urban differences in hospital utilization, location of death trends and other issues facing older adults at the end of life. Her research interests include palliative and end-of-life care, socio-cultural influences in health care decision-making, health services disparities, factors determining hospital utilization in older adults and aging trends worldwide.

Topic:

• Location of death trends and factors affecting location or place of death, with a specific focus on the United States.
• A report of a mixed methods study on the number of moves and the impact of moves during the last year of life.