Author Satavia Hazley Austin: Hospices Need to Tell Their Stories

Photo credit: fernandozhiminaicela

I am an avid soupsmith, and the season is finally upon us. My first for this year is a pumpkin-coconut curry soup. I made it this week, and I confess it was divine – as soups go.

Also this week, I had a great conversation with Satavia Hazley Austin, founder and former CEO of Star of Texas Hospice. Satavia saw her company through an acquisition by Uplift Hospice last year, and we talked about that transaction for a Hospice News article.

However, since the sale of Star of Texas, Satavia has positioned herself as an educator in the end-of-life space, including publishing an anthology book called Journeys to Goodbye. I’d like to share her insights on that work here.

Here are some excerpts from the interview, which has been edited for clarity and length:

In addition to being a hospice owner and a clinician, you’ve also been an educator and an author. What can you tell me about that work?

When I went to a hospice agency for the first time, they did not hire me for a nursing position. They hired me for a liaison-educator position, and really, it was a sales job. I didn’t know enough at the time to understand that it was actually going to be totally sales.

I knew they appreciated me having a nursing degree and wanted clinical expertise on the team, but it turned out I was not an admission nurse at alI. I was totally business development.

In leading up to being an author and writing Journeys of Goodbye, it stems from my earlier days in that I’ve always felt like I was an educator, an advocate in my sales role. I never felt like I was pitching families. I really felt like I was educating the community on services that were offered to them that they didn’t really know about.

As my career grew into other senior leadership positions, I always felt like that was the goal for everyone on the part of the agency too. If you work here, you need to love and appreciate what we do so much that you want other people to know that hospice exists, and we’re here to help families.

The biggest thing for me in hospice, coming from a nursing background, was having an opportunity to be in that [interdisciplinary team (IDT)] meeting. That gave me so much joy. I love that process of having the doctor there, the nurse there, the social worker, the chaplain, and oftentimes a CNA because it gave you such a well-rounded view of the patient.

When I exited from Star of Texas, I had always had this like fire in my belly to want to write a book, and it really was always after a dynamic IDT meeting. I would think, “Oh my God, somebody needs to hear that story.” Storytelling shows people that they’re not alone. They can find hope in that they are not the only ones experiencing this.

What led you to work on your book?

When we exited, I was like, “Okay, now I finally have time to write the book.” So, I curated it, and it was an anthology project. I pulled together some physicians, some nurses, social workers, just an array of people, and got their input on what death and dying meant to them and what experiences they had. Not all the stories are sad. They also give so much hope.

I felt like we had so many stories inside of us that I wanted to make sure that I was able to get out into the world. The people that co-authored with me were so happy that we did it. That’s the point of the book— to connect with other people through storytelling and be able to share with the community the great work that hospice does do.

Now we have an annual forum every November. My hope is that I will be able to continue that. That’s my heart project in terms of how I want to stay engaged and stay involved, because hospice is very near and dear to my heart.