Ethical and Practical Considerations with Diminished Capacity Patients
LifeCircle Webinar
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Event Details
Overview: The session focuses on ethical and practical considerations when working with patients who may have diminished capacity- a topic that crosses law, healthcare, and social services. It will differentiate between contract capacity, decisional capacity and its impact on creating and revoking advance directives.
Objectives:
- Participants will be able to distinguish between contract capacity and decisional capacity to provide informed consent
- Participants will be able to compare and contrast how an attorney determines contact capacity with how a physician determines decisional capacity
- Participants will be able to describe the different levels of decisional capacity and how to optimize capacity
- Participants will be able to describe how capacity impacts one’s ability to create and revoke a durable power of attorney for healthcare.
Audience: General
Sarah Mollman, Associate Dean for Research/Associate Professor, SDSU
Dr. Sarah Mollman is Associate Dean for Research and Associate Professor for the College of Nursing at South Dakota State University. Her nursing oncology experience led her to research decision making in women with early-stage breast cancer. Sarah’s palliative care research trajectory includes studying perceptions and knowledge of palliative care as well as the adaptation of an early palliative care intervention to be culturally responsive for the state’s underserved populations with advanced cancer. She served as the co-project director of a statewide network which has educated over 2,000 individuals in primary palliative care and brought together over 400 interdisciplinary professionals interested in palliative care. After caring for oncology patients and witnessing their needs, improving access to palliative care has become her research passion. Sarah balances her professional life by spending time with her family (two and four-legged), gardening, and brewing kombucha.
Amanda Sedlacek, DO, MSA, FACOI, FAAHPM, Palliative Care Physician, Yankton Medical Clinic, P.C.
Dr. Amanda Sedlacek is a board-certified physician specializing in hospice and palliative medicine and a Fellow of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (FAAHPM). She provides expert palliative care across outpatient clinics, inpatient hospital settings, and long-term care facilities, focusing on improving quality of life for patients with serious illness through symptom management, goals-of-care conversations, and advance care planning.
Dr. Sedlacek has contributed significantly to the field through scholarly work and education. She has published multiple articles on interdisciplinary palliative education and strategies for advanced care planning in South Dakota, emphasizing collaborative approaches to patient-centered care. Her research interests have evolved from academic palliative medicine using virtual education formats to leading advance care planning initiatives across South Dakota.
A recognized leader in professional education, Dr. Sedlacek has presented at national conferences, including the Annual Assembly of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, on topics such as virtual learning, standardized patient simulations, and fostering effective interdisciplinary interactions. She is committed to advancing the integration of palliative care principles across healthcare systems and mentoring the next generation of clinicians in compassionate, evidence-based care.
Cameo Anders, JD, MA, CAP®, CTFA, AVP Trust Officer, Plains Commerce Bank
Cameo Anders is an attorney in Sioux Falls, SD, with a passion for bioethics, especially end-of-life issues, catholic teaching, and law. She enjoys collaborating with students and colleagues in several areas: an Institutional Review Board overseeing human research trials; a Catholic Hospital Ethics Committee, a group of healthcare collaborators dedicated to end-of-life care; and as an adjunct and a clinical assistant professor at SD law and medical schools.
Michele Snyders, MSW, CSW-PIP, APHSW-C, Hospice and Palliative Care Program Manager, SDAHO
Michele Snyders began her social work career back when telephones still had cords and hung on walls. She received her bachelor’s degree from Augustana College and her master’s from the Wurzweiler School of Social Work at Yeshiva University in New York City before there was such a thing as online classes.
Most of her work has been in healthcare where she developed inpatient and outpatient social work roles for newly implemented programs in solid organ transplant, palliative care, dialysis and telehealth in long term care.Palliative Care is where she learned to provide true patient centered, interdisciplinary care for people living with serious illness prompting her to pursue a post-master’s certificate in hospice and palliative care. She is certified as an Advanced Hospice and Palliative Care Social Worker.
Currently, Michele collaborates with dedicated healthcare professionals across the state to improve access to hospice and palliative care through SDAHO and LifeCircle, South Dakota’s Hospice and Palliative Care Network. This is where she finds her joy not only as a specialty palliative care social worker but also as a palliative care patient.