Dying Well: podcast mini series

For this three-part podcast mini series, Clair Fisher spoke to experts in wellbeing, palliative care and healthcare policy. The series discussed the importance of wellbeing when living with a terminal illness, what works based on the evidence available and the evidence gaps that need more exploration.

The expert guests who joined Clair are Kathryn Mannix, Ingrid Abreu-Scherer, Erica Borgstrom, Catherine Millington-Sanders and Sam Royston.

Main episode

Why is a wellbeing approach important? What are the drivers of wellbeing? What’s the role of the workplace when living with a terminal illness, and how do we balance the needs of looking after ourselves and those around us? These are some of the questions discussed this episode.

Evidence gaps episode

This episode explores the evidence gaps and what our guests would like to see happen next in the field of living with a terminal illness and wellbeing.

Kathryn Mannix conversation in full

The final episode is the conversation with Kathryn Mannix in full, author of the bestselling book With the End in Mind.

Kathryn Mannix

Dr. Kathryn Mannix trained and worked in palliative medicine for 30 years in the North of England, in hospices, patients’ homes and in hospital palliative care teams. She trained in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy to satisfy her interest in patients’ emotional coping, and established CBT ‘First Aid’ training for non-mental health practitioners. After waiting her whole career for the public understanding of dying and mortality to become more realistic and less terrifying, she was eventually driven to write a book about dying. ‘With the End in Mind’ unexpectedly became an award-winning, international best-seller. She’s still recovering from her surprise.

Dr. Erica Borgstrom

Erica is a medical anthropologist and senior lecturer at the Open University. She is a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute and Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA). Since Autumn 2020, she has been the lead for Open Thanatology, the Open University’s research and education group focused on death-related topics.

Catherine Millington-Sanders

Catherine is a practising GP in Surrey with a special interest in communication skills as well as death dying and grief. She is a clinical commissioner in South West London and educationalist with 7 years experience as a specialty doctor in palliative medicine. She is also RCGP & Marie Curie National End of Life Care Clinical Champion and clinically led the development of the RCGP & Marie Curie Daffodil Standards – UK General Practice Standards for Advanced Serious Illness and End of Life Care.

Sam Royston

Sam is Director of Policy  He was previously Policy Director at The Children’s Society, and is also a former chair of the End Child Poverty coalition. Prior to that, Sam completed his PhD in the Social Policy department at the University of York, at which point he was also an adviser at a Citizens Advice Bureau. He is also author of the book “Broken Benefits: What’s gone wrong with welfare reform”.

This podcast series is part of our Dying Well project.