Dr. Florence Gelo, associate professor in the Department of Family, Community & Preventive Medicine and a pastoral psychotherapist, is the featured interview in the December installment of the Drexel Medcast™, a monthly medical podcast with leading academic physicians and scientists from the Drexel University College of Medicine faculty.

During the interview, Gelo, who provides palliative care to chronically ill and dying patients, talks about the importance of going beyond the treatment of someone’s physical symptoms to care for the entire person – emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically.

“Death isn’t something we talk about very much in our culture,” says Gelo. “Yet all of us will someday have to face the challenges of dying.”

In addition to helping the patient cope with death, Gelo also discusses the grieving process for loved ones left behind.

“There’s this idea that once you go through each of the four seasons without someone, you should emerge from that a healed person. But the act of grieving is very much a unique journey and there are many different aspects of it unique to each person.”

The interview also delves into Gelo’s unconventional teaching style of using the visual arts to help medical students emotionally prepare for suffering and death. Her technique was recently featured in a video called “The Heart of Empathy,” which was distributed to medical schools nationwide.