She persuaded the hospital to allow her to tend to terminal patients after hearing a speech by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross.
[8] The segment impressed actress Linda Lavin, who made a telephone call to Ufema to talk to her about producing a film about her life.
However, the extra publicity Ufema received meant there were conflicts between her and the hospital administration, and she resigned her post in 1978.
[1] She has held memberships in the Institute of Society, Ethics, and the Life Sciences, the Forum of Death Education and Counseling, and the Pennsylvania Hospice Network Executive Committee.
Ufema founded a private death-counseling practice in Harrisburg which closed after one year of operation because of financial difficulty.
[8] She acquired the York House Hospice for terminally ill patients with AIDS in June 1991 which began operating six months later.
[14] She worked for Upper Chesapeake Medical Center/Harford Memorial Hospital as their Clinical Specialist in Thanatology before her retirement.