04/20/2026
Mary Jean Etten spent 17 years as a Dominican sister before she spent the next five decades teaching the rest of us how to die well.
That is not a small thing. In 1976, when hospice care was still a radical idea in America, when death was something medicine worked to defeat rather than dignify, Dr. Etten helped found what would become Empath Suncoast Hospice. She understood, as few did then, that dying was not a failure. It was the last chapter of a life, and it deserved the same care, skill, and presence as any other.
She brought that conviction into every room she entered. For 33 years, she taught nursing, thanatology, and gerontology at St. Petersburg College. For many years alongside that, she taught Death and Dying at the University of South Florida. She wrote books. She built curricula. She trained caregivers. She sat on boards — the Empath Health Board, the Suncoast Hospice Board, the Foundation Board, the Institute Board — not as a figurehead, but as a builder.
A Spiritual Care Center carries her name. An endowment bears it too, established to advance the caregivers who carry her mission forward.
But the truest tribute is the organization itself: nearly five decades of families in the Tampa Bay region who were held with excellence, dignity, and heart because Mary Jean Etten believed that was possible, and then did the hard, unglamorous work of making it real.
Dr. Etten died this past Friday, April 17, 2026. We are grateful for her, and we will carry her mission forward.
Those who wish to honor Dr. Etten's legacy may contribute to the Mary Jean Etten Caregiver Advancement Endowment, where Suncoast Hospice Foundation will match all donations.
To donate, please visit: SuncoastHospiceFoundation.org
