Regardless of age, sexual orientation or stage in life, intimacy concerns exist and too often palliative care professionals will seldom address the sexuality & intimacy issues in their end of life patients. Qualitative studies suggest that most health care professionals fail to have open discussions about sexuality with their patients and this omission can lead to untreated issues as well as a patient’s perception that their needs are not valid.
This session will attend to provider and institutional barriers in addressing sexuality in patients with cancer, ALS and heart failure. As well as present literature reviews of patient/partner perspectives on this topic in the heterosexual and Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender populations. Attendees will leave this session with tools to improve communication skills and personal comfort to ask about sexual and intimacy concerns.
Speaker: Patrice Villars, MS, ARNP, Associate Director Hospice & Palliative Care
Patrice Villars is the associate director of the Hospice and Palliative care service at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in San Francisco and assistant clinical professor at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Nursing. She is a certified Advanced Hospice and Palliative Care Nurse and Gerontological Nurse Practitioner, holding a master of science with a specialty in Gerontology/Oncology from the University of California, San Francisco. She is currently the primary care provider and hospice coordinator of the inpatient hospice unit within the VA nursing home.
Patrice has worked in palliative and end-of-life care for almost 20 years, providing training and mentorship for interdisciplinary learners including nurse practitioner students and UCSF fellows in both palliative medicine and geriatrics. She is a trainer of ELNEC core, ELNEC Geriatrics, and EPEC and has taught over 10 ELNEC trainings in several states. One of her passions is helping providers in palliative and long term care increase their ability to address patients’ sexuality and intimacy needs.