#123 Understanding death competency with Dr Emma Clare

17.02.25

#123 Understanding death competency with Dr Emma Clare

In this episode it is my pleasure to talk with Dr. Emma Clare. Emma is a chartered psychologist specialising the development of death competency. Her PhD and MSc research to date has focused on improving communication in end-of-life care, psychological influences on healthcare professional’s coping responses to patient death events factors, which support death competency and the impact of healthcare professional's own death anxiety.

You’ll find an extra to Emma’s podcast as we recorded Emma’s Advance Care Planning to date in a separate discussion. The recording kit failed in our original meeting and this part of our conversation was too important to miss, thank you Emma for a round two recording!


Key messages

  • Emma shares the lasting impact of death experience on health care professionals and how the same event can be interpreted so differently depending on the healthcare professionals previous experiences. 

  • Emma explains what a negative experience of death can mean for healthcare professionals. 

  • Death anxiety and death competency are explained by Emma

  • The impact of death competency on planning ahead is explored in detail by Emma

  • We explore the role of all healthcare professionals in palliative and end of life care

  • Emma shares the education available to support healthcare professionals with death literacy

Resource

Bio

Dr Emma Clare is a Chartered Psychologist specialising in the development of death competency. 

Her PhD and MSc research to date has focused on improving communication in end-of-life care, psychological influences on healthcare professionals’ coping responses to patient death events, factors which support death competency development, and the impact of healthcare professionals’ own death anxiety. 

Outside of research Emma is an end-of-life doula, Director of End of Life Doula UK, and founding member of the End of Life Doula International Research Group (EoLD-IRG).  

We explore findings from Emma's research, what death competency looks like from a societal perspective and recognise the importance of death competency in health care professionals.

 

What one thing will you do?

It would be great to share what resonated with you from this episode, what is the one thing you will do differently? Head to Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn to continue these important conversations.

Thanks to all my guests for working with me to share their knowledge, experience and stories about Advance Care Planning. I hope you enjoyed listening and have insights to take away; I love hearing your reflections on the series and look forward to reviews on Spotify where you can also subscribe to the series.

Clare

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