Courageous Conversations with Children, Adolescents and Young Adults Living with Cancer

Dr. Lori Wiener, BS '77 will describe historical information, the development of an advance care planning guide (Voicing My CHOiCES), and barriers to integrating advance care planning into clinical practice and recommendations to increase end of life communication.  She will also share communication tools that are available to you. 

Aboout Lori Weiner
Dr. Lori Wiener is the co-director of the Behavioral Health Core and Head of the Psychosocial Support and Research Program at the Pediatric Oncology Branch of the National Cancer Institute (NCI/NIH). As both a clinician and behavioral scientist, Dr. Wiener has developed a robust clinical and research program that has focused on clinical issues such as distress screening, lone parenting, transnational parenting, preparation for amputation, sibling donation, graph-versus-host disease, and adolescent end-of-life planning. She has also dedicated a substantial part of her career to applying knowledge from her clinical experience and psychosocial studies to create innovative resources such as an electronic distress screening tool, workbooks, therapeutic games and an advance care planning guide for adolescents and young adults, called Voicing My CHOiCES. Dr. Wiener proudly led the team that has developed the first evidence-based psychosocial standards of care for children with cancer and their family members.

Dr. Wiener has over 250 publications spanning peer-reviewed papers and book chapters. She has co-edited the textbooks Pediatric Psycho-Oncology: A Quick Reference on the Psychosocial Dimensions of Cancer Symptom Management and Pediatric Psychosocial Oncology: Textbook for Multi-disciplinary Care, co-authored a storybook, The Gift of Gerbert’s Feathers, to help children through the psychological and behavioral process of preparing for a natural end of life and is currently co-editing a Special Issue in CHILDREN on Psychosocial Issues in Children and Adolescents Living with a Rare Condition.