Dr. Gloria Thomas Anderson joins us to discuss advance care planning, addressing healthcare bias, and empowering diverse communities.
“What Y’all Gon’ Do With Me?” It’s a bold question, but one that opens the door to essential conversations about our final wishes.
In this episode of Everyone Dies, Marianne and Charlie welcome interdisciplinary scholar and licensed master social worker Dr. Gloria Thomas Anderson, Ph.D., LMSW. Dr. Gloria shares insights from her pioneering work and book, The African-American Spiritual and Ethical Guide to End-of-Life Care, addressing the systemic biases, historical distrust, and cultural dynamics that impact how African American families approach advance care planning.
Whether you are navigating these decisions for yourself or supporting a loved one, this episode offers compassionate, practical guidance on honoring personal choices across all backgrounds.
In This Episode:
- 01:24 – Poem: “Gloria Mundi” by Michael Kleber-Diggs
- 03:48 – Interview with Dr. Gloria Thomas Anderson, PhD, LMSW
- 05:48 – Biases preventing African Americans from making advance care plans
- 10:34 – Addressing historical and systemic distrust in healthcare
- 14:56 – Inspiration behind the “Let’s Talk About Advance Care Planning” programs
- 21:38 – Heart Tones & Heart Talks: Life, love, loss and fighting misinformation
- 24:44 – Meeting people where they are in advance planning conversations
- 30:45 – Outro with words from “Doc Martin”
Our Guest: Dr. Gloria Thomas Anderson, PhD, LMSW
Dr. Gloria Thomas Anderson is an interdisciplinary scholar and licensed master social worker whose work bridges faith, emotional wellness, cultural understanding, and ethical decision-making.
Dr. Gloria is author of The African American Spiritual and Ethical Guide to End of Life Care – What Y’all Gon’ Do With Me? It is a culturally-sensitive resource for African Americans to use to talk about advance care planning options and end-of-life issues with their loved ones. Her work focuses on helping families talk about and plan so that doctors and your can know what they would want in a medical emergency.
Dr. Gloria Thomas Anderson, a university professor and licensed social worker, wrote the first edition of The Guide in 2006 after receiving a grant to produce her research findings into a patient education resource to offer relevant information about end-of-life care specifically for African Americans. The Guide is now in its 9th edition and continues to be a helpful resource for families, churches, and other organizations that provide health-related services
Dr. Gloria also founded the community-based Let’s Talk About ACP™ training program as an educational solution to disparities in healthcare advance care planning for Black Americans.
Gloria Mundi
Gloria Mundi is a shortened form of the latin “Sic transit gloria mundi,” which means “thus passes the glory of the world.”
Michael Kleber-Diggs is a poet, essayist, literary critic, and arts educator. His debut poetry collection, Worldly Things (Milkweed Editions 2021), won the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize, the 2022 Hefner Heitz Kansas Book Award in Poetry, the 2022 Balcones Poetry Prize, and was a finalist for the 2022 Minnesota Book Award. Since 2016, Michael has been an instructor with the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop. He also teaches Creative Writing in Augsburg University’s low-res MFA program and at Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists.
Gloria Mundi
by Michael Kleber-Diggs
Come to my funeral dressed as you
would for an autumn walk in the woods.
Arrive on your schedule; I give you permission
to be late, even without good cause.
If my day arrives when you had other plans, please
proceed with them instead. Celebrate me
there — keep dancing. Tend your gardens. Live
well. Don’t stop. Think of me forever assigned
to a period, a place, a people. Remember me
in stories — not the first time we met, not the last,
a time in between. Our moment here is small.
I am too — a worldly thing among worldly things —
one part per seven billion. Make me smaller still.
Repurpose my body. Mix me with soil and seed,
compost for a sapling. Make my remains useful,
wondrous. Let me bloom and recede, grow
and decay, let me be lovely yet
temporal, like memories, like mahogany.
"Gloria Mundi" by Michael Kleber-Diggs from WORLDLY THINGS © 2024 Michael Kleber-Diggs.
References:
- Recipe of the Week: Ranch Cream Cheese Chicken Dip – Butter with a Side of Bread
- Gloria Mundi, by Michael Kleber-Diggs
Resources:
- Michael Kleber Diggs michael kleber-diggs – poet | essayist | literary critic
- Dr. Gloria’s Website – For more information about Dr. Anderson or her work, please visit her website at www.gloriathomasanderson.com
- “Heart Talks with Dr. Gloria” – a short talk show featuring guests having conversations about matters of the H.E.A.R.T.© (Healing, Edifying, Affirming, Restoring, Transforming)
- Dr. Gloria’s Books:
https://blog.feedspot.com/palliative_care_podcasts/
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