toledoblade.com -- The Blade ~ Toledo Ohio

This is the first in a series of profiles of people who have quietly made significant contributions to our community. If you know of such a person, please contact Ann Weber at aweber@theblade.com or 419-724-6126.

Working with the dying changes one's approach to living, says Judy Seibenick, executive director of Hospice of Northwest Ohio.

"Working in hospice has made me focus on what is important," says the 53-year-old who was one of three original hospice nurses when the organization saw its first patients in 1981.

"Anyone who works in hospice understands there are no guarantees in life, and we need to make sure that we spend our time wisely," she reflects.

Much of her time over the last 29 years has been spent promoting the philosophy and presence of hospice in the community. Locally, she has played a central role in its transition from mystery to mainstream.

"It's hard to think of our community without hospice today," observes Virginia Clifford, the now-retired founding director of Hospice of Northwest Ohio. "It's well accepted and we have people like Judy to thank for that."

Hospices provide medical, nursing, emotional, and spiritual care for terminally ill children and adults who are expected to live for about six months or less. The goal is not to cure them or to prolong life but to control pain and manage symptoms so they can live as fully as possible in whatever time is left.

John Joslin, president of the board of trustees, calls Mrs. Seibenick "hospice in action."

"She is a great example of the organization's mission. She's caring, she is understanding, she wants to do the best for patients," he says.

To her, first as a nurse who worked with patients and families in some of their most trying moments and since 2000 as the nonprofit agency's executive director, hospice work "is truly the best job."

Most people can't understand that, she acknowledges. Yes, it can be sad. But depressing? "Never."

"We can always make someone's situation better," Mrs. Seibenick explains. "We're not trying to do the impossible."

Judy Seibenick, executive director of Hospice of Northwest Ohio. Left: The Edward and Marion Knight Hospice Center in Perrysburg.

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Hospice of Northwest Ohio, the first in Toledo and the first licensed in Ohio, started with a staff of five and about 100 patients in 1981. In 2009, with more than 500 employees and 400 volunteers, it served 2,800 patients through its home-care program and two inpatient centers.

Today seven hospices operate in the area, including three national for-profit chains. Two nursing home complexes also provide hospice care.

But in its infancy, hospice's end-of-life philosophy "was seen as an alternative type of medicine," Mrs. Seibenick recalls. "It was a grass-roots movement. There was much excitement among people that were doing the work, but it was not understood or certainly well-known, and it was not evidence-based, so it was not accepted in the medical mainstream."

Most people now have an understanding of what hospice is and is not, although some resistance remains among the general public and medical community. And the topic of death itself is still touchy.

"It is very difficult for people to think about their own mortality, and we struggle to get the message out about the benefits of hospice care because so much of America doesn't want to deal with the fact that we're all going to die," Mrs. Seibenick says.

"It's not that people in hospice want to die, but on some level they're willing to face the fact."

Mrs. Seibenick followed in the footsteps of her mother when she chose a career in nursing. After graduating from Bowling Green State University in 1979, she took a job with Visiting Nurse Service.

Home nursing tends to have less emphasis on technology and more on education, the family support system, and helping patients be at home, she says. Moving from that into hospice care was a natural step.

"I guess I felt comfortable caring for people who were dying. I was not frightened," Mrs. Seibenick says.

From her early days in hospice nursing, Mrs. Seibenick remembers things like being called out in the middle of the night, and always having to carry quarters for pay phones in case she got lost. Those were the days before cell phones and GPS units.

But her strongest memories center on people — dealing with the patient as a whole person, providing hands-on care, establishing a special relationship with families.

"I loved hospice nursing, especially going into people's homes," Mrs. Seibenick says. "I can travel around the city and say I was in that house and that house and that house and remember every patient."

She misses bedside nursing a little, but physically she's not far away from it. Her office is a floor above the 25-bed inpatient unit on East River Road in Perrysburg. "I can certainly still meet patients and families, and I enjoy doing that," she says.

Through her office windows, she also can see patients and families out on the lovely grounds on nice days, "a good reminder of why we're doing this work," Mrs. Seibenick reflects.

"No matter how big our organization gets or how many patients we care for, it's important that for each patient and family we are there for them 100 percent, because we don't get a do-over. This is the only time that that father will die."

Mrs. Seibenick says being executive director has allowed her to grow beyond nursing, "and is satisfying every single day."

At the end of the day. she loves to read, walk her dogs through her Old Orchard neighborhood, and bake. She's known especially for her homemade pies.

She and Kurt Seibenick, her husband of 31 years, met on the swim team at BGSU. They have two grown children — Andrew in Montana and Amy in Dayton.

Family, health, faith, good work and good friends — those are the things she says are most important to her. "It's important to me that I have meaningful work," she adds.

Mrs. Seibenick was in the first group of hospice administrators nationwide to earn the designation of Certified Hospice and Palliative Care Administrator, has overseen construction of Hospice of Northwest Ohio's Perrysburg and Toledo centers, and is on the board of the Ohio Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.

She helped establish the first formal end-of-life care training program for medical students and residents at the University of Toledo Health Science Campus (formerly the Medical College of Ohio), was a founding member of the grief resources coalition Northwest Ohio HEALS, initiated community-wide Caring for the Caregiver training, and helped create the Advance Care Planning Coalition of Greater Toledo.

Recently Mrs. Seibenick earned a masters degree in organizational leadership at Lourdes College.

She learns from patients, too, as they come to terms with dying and focus on what they want to accomplish in the time they have.

"The human will and the human spirit is incredible," she marvels.

"I hope and pray that when I am terminally ill I have the grace and dignity to accept it and live my life accordingly."

Contact Ann Weber at: aweber@theblade.com
or 419-724-6126.

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