Sunday, June 8 - 10:00 AM
Opening Keynote

Grief, Love, and the Will to Go On: Lessons from Resilient Grieving

How do we support people in the aftermath of devastating loss—without falling back on outdated models or deficit-based assumptions? In this uplifting and evidence-informed keynote, Dr Lucy Hone—globally respected resilience researcher, bereaved mother, author of Resilient Grieving, and top-rated TED speaker—shares the lessons she’s learned from both personal tragedy and decades of academic work.

Rejecting the passive and prescriptive Five Stages model, Lucy offers a more hopeful, strengths-based path through grief—one that honours individual agency, connection, and meaning. She replaces three unhelpful myths with insights drawn from modern bereavement science, and applauds the essential work of hospice and palliative care professionals. This keynote is both a practical toolkit and a powerful reminder: when we show up with courage and compassion, we help people do the hardest thing imaginable—go on living.

Dr. Lucy Hone  Regarded as a global thought leader in the field of resilience psychology, tragedy tested everything Dr Lucy thought she knew about resilience in deeply personal circumstances when her daughter and friends were killed in a tragic accident. Adjunct senior fellow at the University of Canterbury and at the University of Pittsburgh’s Medical School, Lucy is an internationally sought-after professional speaker, best-selling author, and award-winning academic. Covid-19 saw her TED talk go viral making it one of the Top 20 of 2020. With clients ranging from Apple and Amazon, to Hospice and the UN, she helps individuals, teams and communities navigate tough times. Her work is regularly featured in global media, including the Guardian, the Hidden Brain, the Washington Post, and the BBC, the Sydney Morning Herald, CBS  and ABC. Author of best-seller, Resilient Grieving, Dr Lucy is co-founder of the hugely popular Coping With Loss programme. 

Sunday, June 8 - 4:15 PM

The 2025 Carmelita Lawlor Lecture in Palliative

Dr. Kathy Kortez-Miller, MSW, PhD

Kathy Kortes-Miller, MSW, PhD is an Associate professor in the School of Social Work, the Director of the Centre for Education and Research on Aging and Health and the research chair in aging and end-of-life at Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Ontario Canada. Kathy has a passion for contributing to improving the end-of-life care for all. Kathy’s research is interdisciplinary and collaborative and she is a founding member of the Canadian Grief Alliance.  She is the author of  the book “Talking About Death Won’t Kill You” with ECW Press and her most recent projects include a podcast called “Disrupting Death” available wherever you get your podcasts.

Monday, June 9 - 9:00 AM

Death is But a Dream, Dr. Christopher Kerr

Experiences at the end of life, including dreams and visions, testify to our greatest needs: to love and be loved, to be nurtured and feel connected, to be remembered and forgiven. Although medically ignored, such experiences are near universal and often provide comfort and meaning. To date, the research team at Hospice Buffalo has published multiple studies on this topic and documented over 1,500 end-of-life events, many of which are videotaped.

The lecture will focus on published research that describes and validates patients dreams and visions at the end of life. Dr. Kerr will explore how these near universal experiences often provide comfort and meaning as well as insight into the life led. The presentation includes videos of patients and families describing the meaningfulness of these powerful end of life experiences.

Christopher Kerr is the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Executive Officer at Hospice & Palliative Care Buffalo where he has worked since 1999. Born and raised in Toronto, Canada, Chris earned his MD as well as a PhD in Neurobiology. Outside of direct patient care, Chris’ focus is in the area of patient advocacy. His passion is palliative care and a belief that such care should be throughout the continuum of illness. Under Dr. Kerr’s medical leadership, Hospice Buffalo now serves 1,200 patients a day, the majority of whom receive services upstream of hospice care. Dr. Kerr’s background in research has evolved from bench science towards the human experience of illness as witnessed from the bedside, specifically patient’s subjective experiences at the end of life. To date, the research team at Hospice Buffalo has published multiple studies on this topic and documented over 1,500 end-of-life events, many of which are videotaped. This work was the subject of his TEDx Buffalo Talk which has been viewed 5.4 million times. It has been the subject of numerous reports around the world as well as The BBC, CBC, NPR, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic Monthly, Scientific American Mind, Huffington Post,  NY Times Magazine and Psychology Today. It is also featured in a docu-series on Netflix called Surviving Death and a PBS Documentary called Death Is but A Dream. He is also involved in a third documentary, Edge of Life, to be released in 2025. Dr. Kerr’s work has also been published in a book (Death Is but A Dream) by Penguin Random House which was released in 2020 in over 10 languages.