By Ingrid Berg,
TGLP Board Chair
March 2025
The TGLP community would like to thank Nancy Eddy, outgoing board president, for her service to the board and the mission of TGLP. Eddy, who will remain on the board, has been an active member for the last four years. She was recruited to serve on the board by good friend and TGLP founder, Frankie Abralind.
For Eddy, a palliative care social worker, blending creative and reflective practices to support health care workers and patients aligns well with the elements she loves best in her work. She has been involved in helping trainees in critical care settings debrief on the patients who died prior to their rotation end. These debriefs, much like the poetry written by Listener Poets, can provide opportunities to process and sit with the discomfort and grief that can accompany a career in health care. Such work may fill gaps in skills that “role models don’t teach them,” Eddy said.
Currently, Eddy works as a palliative care social worker with the palliative telehealth program at MedStar in Baltimore and Washington, providing a bridge for outpatient support for seriously ill patients. During her time on the board, Eddy has witnessed the growth of TGLP with several additional cohorts graduating from the Certified Listener Poet program and an expansion of services to include programming for caregivers. As health care workers, patients, caregivers, and families grapple with uncertainty and cuts to resources and funding in the current political climate, the reach of TGLP seems ever more urgent. When it comes to poetry, Eddy observed, “I can see the power in it”—how the partnerships, the poetry, and the brave conversations can bring us all closer together.
Thank you, Nancy, for your support and championing of TGLP! The community is grateful for your time and talent as board leader over the last several years.