AUBURN — Hospice Foundation of America’s 19th annual National Bereavement Program is being held on Thursday, April 26, at The Fortin Group Funeral Home. This national award-winning seminar is co-sponsored by Androscoggin Home Care and Hospice and The Fortin Group-Funeral and Cremation Services.

This year’s program focuses on “end-of-life ethics.” The program will examine, using a case study approach, the ethical issues and dilemmas that emerge at the end-of-life care, the principals of ethical decision-making and the effects of these decisions on staff and families. The program will be broadcast via DVD from 1 to 4:30 p.m. Registration begins at 12:30 p.m.

Lynn Scherr, former ABC News’ 20/20 correspondent, will moderate the program. Sherr will lead the panel of noted authorities that includes Timothy R. Arsenault, director of spiritual care for Suncoast Hospice; Karen Bullock, associate professor at North Carolina State University, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of Social Work; Eileen R. Chichin, co-director of the Greenberg Center on Ethics and Palliative Care at Jewish Home Lifecare and an adjunct assistant professor at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine at Long Island University; Kenneth J. Doka, professor of gerontology at the Graduate School of the College of New Rochelle; Bruce Jennings, director of bioethics at the Center for Humans and Nature, lecturer at the Yale School of Public Health, lecturer at the Weill Medical School-Cornell University and a senior consultant at The Hastings Center; and Neal E. Slatkin, vice president of medical services and chief medical officer at Hospice of the Valley, San Jose, Calif., and director of palliative care at El Camino Hospital, Mountain View, Calif.

Continuing education contact hours are available through the Hospice Foundation of America for nurses, social workers, case managers, home health aides, counselors, funeral directors, clergy, psychologists, physicians, EMS personnel, EAPs and nursing home administrators. Continuing Educational hours are available online for $30 until May 3 and $35 afterwards until April 19, 2013.

Call 795-9537 for more information and to register.