Eleanor Flynn

Dr Eleanor Flynn is a medical graduate who retired in 2019 from the University of Melbourne Medical School where she was involved in student selection, developing and implementing curriculum for palliative care, and teaching clinical communication and professional behaviour. Until 2017 she also worked as a Palliative Care specialist in both hospital and community settings. Her theological studies include a master’s degree considering the images in the office of the dead in late medieval books of hours. She has published on clinical and philosophical aspects of care of the dying, selection of medical students, professionalism in medical schools, communications skills teaching, supporting staff who support students, the medieval view of death and the education of chaplains in COVID-19. She currently coteaches a course on death and bereavement through art and spirituality at the University of Divinity, and a module on Supportive and Palliative Care in the Master of Cancer Sciences at the University of Melbourne. Her current research interests are in faith-based funerals during Covid lockdowns and families providing spiritual care to people with dementia.