Venue

: The Mehdi Reading Room
: 1119 8th Ave
Seattle, 98101 United States + Google Map

Event Format: In-Person

EVENT NOTES
Doors for this event will open at 5:30 PM. Town Hall events are approximately 75 minutes long.

Headshots of Dr. Jared Strote and Wendy Norman

Arts & Culture

Is the series The Pitt reality or fiction?

In the series The Pitt there are several episodes where doctors discuss a patient’s wishes with loved ones when the patient cannot communicate. You can often hear forms referenced like Advance Directives, Do Not Resuscitate Orders and the Portable Order for Life Sustaining Treatment (POLST). These forms are all methods to limit or guide the treatment a patient does or does not want in an ER, depending on how serious their injury or illness is and the risk to their quality of life. To understand the role these forms can play to protect the wishes or you or your loved ones, join Wendy Norman from Known Wishes as she guides you through how to prepare in advance of a healthcare crisis.

Jared Strote is a professor of emergency medicine and has worked as an emergency physician at the UW Montlake and Harborview medical centers for the last 23 years. In that time, he has experienced hundreds of difficult life or death decisions with patients and/or healthcare surrogates and loved ones. He also trains medical students and residents to navigate these sensitive situations in an effort to honor patient wishes.

Aside from clinical work, he has broad academic and research interests. His primary focus is on minimizing risk of injury or death during law enforcement encounters where force is used. In his clinical research, he has published on physician grief after deaths in the emergency department.

Dr. Strote received his MD from Harvard Medical School and attended his emergency medicine residency at Stanford.

Wendy Norman has been researching and engaging with end-of-life issues for over 15 years. Wendy’s interest was sparked by her mother’s diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer’s in 2006. This is when she learned how important it is to have a plan before becoming ill, especially when cognitive decline is involved. Wanting to help others understand the value of pre-planning, Wendy became an end-of-life planning consultant in 2017. In 2019, she left a 25-year career in marketing and program management to invest her time and energy toward end-of-life planning, education and awareness. In 2020, she helped create and lead a team of volunteers to launch an education and awareness program called End of Life Ready hosted by End of Life Washington. Building on that experience, Known Wishes was created to broaden and deepen end-of-life education.

Presented by Town Hall Seattle and Known Wishes.

Events are offered for informational, entertainment, and educational purposes only. Read Town Hall’s Program Content Policy.