The Vanderbilt School of Nursing and Vanderbilt Divinity School will co-host the Spirituality and End-of-Life Care Conference Saturday, February 7, 2026. The conference is a free, one-day event addressing the intersection of spiritual care, end-of-life care and health disparities.
The conference will feature keynote presentations from leading experts focusing on end-of-life care, spirituality, health inequities and cultural-spiritual awareness, including supporting Indigenous, LGBTQ+, incarcerated and military individuals in end-of-life contexts. Panel discussions will provide perspectives from Indigenous and marginalized communities. Interactive workshops will provide participants opportunities to take part in hands-on learning experiences, interdisciplinary discussion and practical applications of spiritual assessment and ethical considerations.
VUSN Assistant Professor Gloria Littlemouse, PhD, and Assistant Professor of the Practice of Ethics at the Divinity School Graham Reside, PhD, MDiv, will lead the conference. Candy Wilson, PhD, FAANP, FAAN, professor at Florida Atlantic University, will be the keynote speaker.
Littlemouse has participated in end-of-life education as an end-of-life nursing education trainer and presenter for the Five Wished Advanced Directive Program. Her multifaceted expertise encompasses her roles as an end-of-life doula, a nurse executive/regional director of Nursing in Hospice, and director of nursing in the prison system, positioning her at the intersection of clinical practice and compassionate care through the lens of Caring Science.
Reside’s research and teaching interests focus on the role of social institutions as vehicles of social goods and schools of moral formation. As director, he developed the interprofessional student fellowship, a group of 21 professional students selected from Vanderbilt’s seven professional schools who journey together to deepen their moral awareness and gain leadership skills.
Wilson is a women’s health-focused nurse scientist whose research has significantly impacted military women’s health and health care. Her work has focused on three key areas: illness behaviors of deployed military women managing genitourinary symptoms, maintaining healthy iron status for female trainees and integrative medicine treatments for low back pain. Wilson honorably served in the active-duty U.S. Air Force and retired in 2022. Throughout her career, she provided patient care as a clinical nurse and women’s health nurse practitioner, including delivering women’s health care in Afghanistan villages to more than 3,000 women and children.
The conference is being sponsored by the VUSN Health Equity Fellows Fund, and is open to Divinity and School of Nursing students, the VU community and members of the hospice and palliative care communities. For more information about the conference and to register, click here.