“Kathleen Ziemba became an advance care planning Instructor in 2004 and joined the Respecting Choices Faculty team in 2014. She is certified to deliver all stages of Respecting Choices advance care planning programsFirst Steps, Next Steps, and Advanced Steps. Ziemba obtained a master’s degree in social work from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Ziemba has more than three decades of experience as a clinical social worker and leader in healthcare, hospice, and palliative care. Throughout her career, Ziemba has chosen roles that best allow her to deliver a strengths-based practice, person- and family-centered care, program innovation, and professional mentoring. In her management roles, Ziemba was an active member on ethics, critical incident debriefing, clinical practice, and education committees. She serves as First Steps Faculty consultant and steering committee member for Honoring Choices Wisconsin, an initiative of the Wisconsin Medical Society.

Ziemba consults with individuals and teams to improve values-based conversations and coordination of care by integrating person-centered decision making into routine care and the fabric of the larger community.

“Social advance depends as much upon the process through which it is secured as upon the result itself.”
— Jane Addams

Hobbies and Interests
Hiking, horses, exploring local cuisine while traveling”