You can help change the course of death
Take the first step: Get involved
The Princeton NJ-based Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the American Medical Association have joined forces to change the culture of dying, and they’re looking for more than just a few good men and women. Members of ethics committees from a wide variety of health care settings are urged to become involved in these efforts. While each of the three programs described in this issue of Medical Ethics Advisor are just beginning, here are some ways that you can get involved initially:
• Order the Public Broadcasting Service Television Special/Interactive videotape for community education. On April 22, the Public Broadcasting System will air Before I Die: Medical Care and Personal Choices. The program is a seminar with a panel of medical and religious experts discussing the issues surrounding the impending death of three hypothetical patients. Planners hope health care professionals will use the program as a basis for community education programs, which can be purchased on videotape, and accompanying viewers’ guides. To obtain a copy of the video and a viewers’ guide, contact: PBS Home Video at (800) 424-7963.
• Join a Last Acts task force or resource committee. Opportunities may also become available for group discussion and collaboration through your state professional organizations, such as the American Nurses Association.
Family, workplace, financing, spirituality, and diversity task forces are managed by Barksdale Ballard and Co., 8027 Leesburg Pike, #200, Vienna, VA 22182. Telephone: (703) 827-8771. Fax: (703) 827-0783. E-mail: [email protected]. Palliative care, provider education, service providers, standards and guidelines, and evaluation and outcomes task forces are managed by Stewart Communications, P.O. Box 11226, Chicago, IL. Telephone: (312) 464-4988. Fax: (312) 464-5843. E-mail:[email protected].
• Share your institution’s policies, guidelines with a national resource group. A standards and guidelines resource group will help Lasts Acts participants identify, develop, and implement specific practice standards and guidelines. Examples of standards include advance directives, pain management, comfort care, psychological and bereavement counseling.
The resource group is currently looking for existing policies and guidelines. If you can share yours, contact: Myra Christopher, Midwest Bioethics Center, 1021-1025 Jefferson St., Kansas City, MO 64105-1329. Telephone: (816) 221-1100. Fax: (816) 221-2002. E-mail: [email protected].
• Visit the Robert Wood Johnson’s Last Acts Web site. The Web address is: http://www.lastacts.org If you have a related web site, contact RWJ about linking related pages or information.
• Create and distribute educational materials for the staff and community education on informed decisionmaking, death, dying, and bereavement. Contact a local hospice for assistance. Make sure the materials are available in different languages to meet the diverse needs of your community.
• Establish community-based support groups for the terminally ill and their family members.
• Support a larger role for community clergy in your institution’s counseling and bereavement efforts for dying patients.
• Initiate a bereavement program for families of dying patients. (See MEA, February 1997, p. 15.)
• Establish hospital/institutional-based resource centers containing information and educational tools related to end-of-life care.
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