Arts in Medicine Presents The Last Ecstatic Days Film Screening & End-of-Life Care Panel: Cultural & Spiritual Considerations

6:00 PM in the Reynold-Kirschbaum Concert Hall at the Alys Stephens Center

Film screening of the “Last Ecstatic Days” featuring Aditi Sethi 

Ethan Sisser, a young man with terminal brain cancer, sits alone in his hospital room.  When he starts live streaming his death journey on social media, thousands of people around the world join to celebrate his courage. Still, Ethan envisions more – to teach the world how to die without fear. To do that, he needs to film his death.

Honoring Ethan’s wish, his doctor Aditi Sethi transports him to an idyllic house in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Asheville, North Carolina. What unfolds next is a story rarely glimpsed: how a community of strangers helps a young man die with grace.

A sensory immersion into leaving the body, “The Last Ecstatic Days” reveals a man who will not let us forget him – even after he’s taken his final breath.

 7:30 PM 

Panel discussion – End of Life: Cultural and Spiritual Considerations  

Speakers include:  

• Manjari Sharma, Artist  

• Aditi Sethi, MD, Founder and Executive Director, Center for Conscious Living & Dying, End-of-life Doula, and Musician (NOTE: she is featured in the documentary) 

• Ronit Elk, PhD, FAAHPM, Professor, Associate Director, Center of Palliative and Supportive Care 

• Chao-Hui Sylvia Huang, PhD, MA, Med, Associate Professor, Clinical Psychologist, UAB Center for Palliative and Supportive Care 

• Moneka Thompson, MDiv, MA, Spiritual Care Manager, UAB Medicine Gerontology/Geriatrics/Palliative Care 

• Rushil V. Patel, MD, Assistant Professor, Hematology/Oncology 

• Moderator – Rev. Julie Conrady of Unitarian Universalist Church of Birmingham 

This event and its programming are made possible by