Thursday, February 21, 2002 TODAY
- 2002 Bioethics Conference to focus on end-of-life care
- Jack W. Provonsha Lecture Series explains how
to reclaim the end of your life
2002 Bioethics Conference to focus on end-of-life care
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| Ira R. Byock, MD |
A symposium to address medical, ethical, and spiritual aspects in end-of-life
care will be held March 13 to 14, 2002, in the Wong Kerlee International
Conference Center.
Ira R. Byock, MD, director, The Palliative Care Service, Missoula, Montana,
is keynote speaker for the conference, titled “Dying Well: Integrating
Vision and Hope into Practice.”
Improving end-of-life care for patients has become a major topic of discussion
in this country, according to Mark F. Carr, PhD, theological co-director,
Center for Christian Bioethics, Loma Linda University.
With an aging population demanding its goals and preferences be heard
and respected, there is a need to learn how to provide improved end-of-life
care. A crucial part of this care involves an explicit focus on spiritual
matters and ethical issues unique to the care of dying
persons.
Nationwide there has been a dearth of end-of-life care education provided
to health-care
workers. This symposium seeks to counter that reality.
“The purpose of this symposium is to increase awareness of the importance
of comprehensive, interdisciplinary end-of-life care,” says Dr. Carr.
“The goal is to provide knowledge and skills so that health-care
workers will feel competent and confident in their ability to provide
this care.”
At the completion of this conference, attendees will be able to describe
the changes in health-care delivery in the United States as they pertain
to ethical, medical, and spiritual care at the end of life; discuss terminal
sedation from the religious perspectives of Judaism, Catholicism, and
Protestantism, and imagine how individual clinicians can respond to pain
and suffering at the end of life; and establish how ethical, medical,
and spiritual care will be delivered in their
settings.
The conference is presented by the Center for Christian Bioethics, Center
for Spiritual Life & Wholeness, and the Division of Palliative Care,
department of family medicine, Loma Linda University Medical Center.
The extensive list of speakers includes Wil Alexander, PhD, emeritus director,
Center for Spiritual Life & Wholeness, LLU; John C. Brunt, PhD, professor
of biblical studies, Walla Walla College, College Place, Washington; Dr.
Byock; Rabbi William Cutter, PhD, professor of education and modern Hebrew
literature, Hebrew Union College, Jewish Institute of Religion, Los Angeles;
Betty R. Ferrell, PhD, RN, research scientist, City of Hope National Medical
Center, Duarte;
Jackie Hay, RN, OCN, CRNH, program director, palliative home healthcare,
San Diego Hospice; Bonnie Huiskes, MSN, FNP, nurse practitioner, cardiomyopathy
program, LLUMC; Karen Lebacqz, PhD, Robert Gordon Sproul professor of
theological ethics, Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley; Stephen J. McPhee,
MD, professor of medicine, University of California, San Francisco; Robert
D. Orr, MD, director of ethics, University of Vermont College of Medicine,
Burlington, Vermont; Earl B. Quijada, MD, fellow, palliative care service,
Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts; David Sine, MD,
medical director, pediatric hospice program, San Diego Hospice; Karen
J. Stanley, MSN, RN, AOCN, founder, co-chair, Claremont Coalition Concerned
with End of Life Issues, Claremont; Lizabeth H. Sumner, RN, BSN, program
director, pediatric hospice program, San Diego Hospice; and James J. Walter,
PhD, director, The Bioethics Institute, Loyola Marymount University, Los
Angeles.
Dr. Byock has been involved in hospice and palliative care since 1978.
At that time he helped found a hospice home care program for the indigent
population served by the university hospital and county clinics of Fresno,
California.
He is past president of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative
Medicine (1997) and was recipient of the National Hospice and Palliative
Care Organization prestigious Person of the Year award (1995).
Dr. Byock is a frequent workshop and keynote presenter at state, regional,
national, and international meetings. He has authored numerous articles
on the ethics and practice of end-of-life care. He has served as chair
of the Ethics Committee for the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative
Medicine, and has been a member of the Ethics Committee of the National
Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.
He serves on the editorial boards of several professional publications,
including the Journal of Palliative Medicine. Dr. Byock has appeared on
numerous national television and radio programs, including Letting Go:
A Hospice Journey (HBO), Final Blessings (NBC), Nightline (ABC), Before
I Die: Medical Care and Personal Choices (PBS), All Things Considered
(NPR), and his essays have appeared in national papers, including the
Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. His book, Dying Well: The Prospect
for Growth at the End of Life, is available from Putnam/Riverhead.
Dr. Byock's research interests include assessment of subjective quality
of life of people living with advanced, incurable illness, and development
of evidence-based, community models for caregiving, dying, and grieving.
The conference is sponsored by Loma Linda University Medical Center, School
of Medicine, School of Dentistry, Loma Linda University Family Medical
Group, and Adventist Health.
For more information on the conference and registration, check out the
website at <www.llumc.edu/llu/ceu/events>, or call (909) 558-4956.
|Top|
Jack W. Provonsha Lecture Series explains how to reclaim
the end of your life
Learning how to reclaim the end of your life is the subject of this year's
Jack W. Provonsha Lecture Series. The series, presented by the Loma Linda
University Center for Christian Bioethics, will be held on Tuesday, March
12, 2002, at 7:00 p.m. in the University Church of
Seventh-day Adventists on the Loma Linda campus.
This year's lecture will feature Ira Byock, MD, and is open to the public
at no charge.
“Dying Well: Reclaiming the End of Life” is the title of the
lecture. Dr. Byock is director of The Palliative Care Center in Missoula,
Montana, and also co-founder of The Missoula Demonstration Project: The
Quality of Life's End.
He is former president of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative
Medicine. His recent book, titled A Few Months to Live: Different Paths
to Life's End, describes what dying is like from the perspectives of nine
terminally ill individuals and their caregivers.
Established in honor of Jack W. Provonsha, MD, PhD, this lecture series
focuses on the integration of ethics, theology, spirituality, and medicine.
Dr. Provonsha was influential in the establishment of the Center for Christian
Bioethics 17 years ago and is director emeritus.
Dr. Byock is also the featured speaker for this year's Bioethics Conference
to be held March 13 to 14 on the campus of Loma Linda University. The
conference, “Dying Well: Integrating Vision and Hope into Practice,”
is a symposium designed to address the medical, ethical, and spiritual
aspects of end-of-life care. A story on the upcoming conference can be
found on page 1.
For more information on the lecture series or for directions to University
Church, please contact Heather Morrison at (909) 558-4956.
|Top| [February 21, 2002 TODAY]
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