Dr. Hanno W. Kirk is a licensed clinical social worker who has worked in oncology, home health and hospice settings, and has been a trainer and educator for the past 33 years. He began training hospice workers in Dallas more than twenty years ago, and pioneered a training program for nurses and staff of nursing homes on meeting the essential needs of residents. Since then, Dr. Kirk has conducted staff and volunteer training for hospitals, home health agencies and hospice organizations. He has presented his seminar, You and Your Aging Parents, to many churches and civic organizations.

Dr. Kirk developed the Life Enrichment Program for Older Persons under the Dallas Council of Churches and taught "Pastoral Care for Older Persons" at Perkins School of Theology and "Psychosocial Issues in Medicine" for the Physician Assistant Program at Mountain State University in West Virginia. He is principal author of Psychosocial and Behavioral Aspects of Medicine (Lippincott, Williams and Wilkins 2002), as well as numerous articles. Dr. Kirk earned his B.A. and M.A. degrees at UCLA, his M.S. in Social Work from the University of Texas at Arlington and his Ph.D. from the Institute of Advanced Studies at the Australian National University.