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Ira
Byock, M.D. is a palliative care physician and long-time public
advocate for improving care through the end of life.
Dr.
Byock is Director of Palliative Medicine at Dartmouth Hitchcock
Medical Center and Professor of Anesthesiology and Community and
Family Medicine at Dartmouth Medical School. Board certifications
include Family Practice, Emergency Medicine (1988-1998) and Hospice
and Palliative Medicine. He is co-founder and principal investigator
of Life’s End Institute (previously the Missoula Demonstration
Project), a community-based research and quality improvement
organization focused on end-of-life experience and care.
Nationally, Dr. Byock directs the Promoting Excellence in
End-of-Life Care national grant and technical assistance program
of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He is a past president of the
American
Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (1997), and recipient of
the Academy’s Distinguished Service Award in 2002. He received the
National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization prestigious Person
of the Year award (1995), and the National Coalition of Cancer
Survivorship’s Natalie Davis Springarn, Writers Award (2000).
Dr.
Byock is a frequent keynote speaker at state, regional, national and
international meetings. He has published numerous academic articles
on ethics and practice of end-of-life care. He serves on numerous
advisory committees and the editorial boards of several professional
publications, including the Journal of Palliative Medicine.
Dr.
Byock energetically advocates for improved access, quality of care
and family support. He has participated in discussions of ethical
issues related to end-of-life care on innumerable radio and
television broadcasts including: One on One with John McLaughlin,
The Jim Lehrer News Hour, Talk of the Nation, and The Diane Rehm
Show. Appearances on national television and radio include: Letting
Go: A Hospice Journey (HBO), Final Blessings (NBC), Nightline (ABC),
Before I Die: Medical Care and Personal Choices (PBS), All Things
Considered (NPR), Dateline (NBC), 60 Minutes with Ed Bradley (CBS),
and Summit for a Cure (MSNBC).
Dr.
Byock writes for the public in a voice that conveys professional
expertise and consumer advocacy. His essays and op-eds have appeared
in regional and national papers, including the Washington Post and
Wall Street Journal. His work has garnered lengthy reports in the
New York Times Magazine (July 6, 1997), Modern Maturity (September
2000) and a special half-hour segment of NPR’s All Things Considered
(November 1997).
His
first book, Dying Well (Putnam/Riverside, 1997), has become a
core reading on the subject. He has co-authored A Few Months to
Live (Georgetown University Press, 2001) and co-edited
Palliative and End-of-Life Pearls (Hanley & Belfus, 2002),
a collection of clinical case studies. His latest book, The
Four Things That Matter Most, is written for the general public
and is published in 2004 by The Free Press, a division of Simon &
Schuster.
Further information available at:
www.dyingwell.org
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