The Dissertation Defense of Stephen Jones
DATE: Tuesday, March 22, 2011
TIME: 12:45 p.m.
PLACE: Room A, Ladera Lane campus
CANDIDATE: Stephen Jones
DISSERTATION TITLE: "The Medicine We Carry: A Portrait of Social-Model Hospice Care"
PROGRAM-TRACK/YEAR: PhD-K; 2008
COORDINATOR: Dr. Allen Koehn
ADVISOR: Dr. Jennifer Selig
EXTERNAL READER: Dr. Susan Plummer
Jones, S. (2011). The Medicine We Carry: A Portrait of Social-Model Hospice Care (Doctoral dissertation, Pacifica Graduate Institute, 2011)
ABSTRACT
This dissertation uses an experiential approach to study the care for the dying at Sarah House, a community of innovative hospice caregiving in Santa Barbara, California. Managed not by nurses but simply by committed caregivers, Sarah House provides end-of-life care for the poor and homeless within a residential setting. While conventional medical care for the dying focuses on the treatment of disease and its symptoms, Sarah House employs a social care model which emphasizes the full range of human experiences that can accompany the end of life. Expanding on the traditional medical model, the care includes working with physical and non-physical sources of both pain and healing. Using the qualitative method of portraiture, this exploration of Sarah House depicts dying as more than a medical event and medicine itself as more than administered drugs. This dissertation identifies four medicines – kindness, community, ritual, and service – that illustrate the healing work of Sarah House. By sharing the stories of Sarah House, this current research suggests that tending the needs of the soul can help the experience of dying be one of healing completion.
Stephen Jones is congratulated by his mentor at Sarah House, Debbie McQuade, House Manager
Stephen with proud parents Paul and Debbie Jones, who flew in for the event from Richmond, Virginia
Stpehen with Dissertation Advisor Jennifer Selig, the first one to address him as Dr. Stephen Jones
Click on the video to watch the beginning of the defense
Click here to visit Sarah House's website, or watch the video below.
Stephen with girlfriend Anna Krasno, a Clinical Psychology Ph.D. student at University of California, Santa Barbara
Stephen's external reader, Dr. Susan Plummer, Director at Santa Barbara Alliance for Living and Dying Well.
