Looking Ahead: The Future of Good Deaths

Jillian A. Tullis, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies and the Director of the Biomedical Ethics program at the University of San Diego (USD) in California. Her teaching and research interests focus on health communication, specifically communication about dying and death in and outside of healthcare settings. She serves on multiple editorial boards and scholarship uses qualitative methods to study such topics as hospice team communication, tumor boards, quality of life, and the concept of a “good death.” Dr. Tullis is looking forward to developing an undergraduate Medical Humanities course with the support of a Faculty Innovation in Teaching Grant. She is wrapping up a sabbatical where she has focused on the history of end-of-life care among enslaved Africans, social media and death, and interviewing people about dying well and a “good death.”