Katie Ortlip, RN, LCSW, received her nursing degree from Santa Barbara City College in 1982. She spent three years working in neonatology at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital in New York City and Mary Dartmouth-Hitchcock Hospital in Hanover, Vermont. She then spent six years working in pediatrics at Albany Medical Center while earning a BS in Psychology and Masters of Social Work at SUNY-Albany. She moved to Ashland, Oregon, with her family in 1992, and has worked as a nurse and social worker for Asante Hospice for the past twenty years. She studied with Richard and Mary Groves of the Sacred Art of Living Center, completing the Sacred Art of Dying program. She has also studied with Frank Ostaseski, founding director of Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco. She has a special interest in ethics at the end of life, and has attended conferences with Ira Byock, Barbara Karnes and most recently the Kinsman Conference on Stewardship in Health Care. Katie is co-author of Spiritual Tools for the Dying, a booklet distributed by Asante Health Care to all patients on hospice.
