215498 Social Justice at End of Life: Empowering Terminally Ill Patients with Information and Choice at the End of Life

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Barbara Coombs Lee, PA, FNP, JD , President, Compassion & Choices, Denver, CO
  
As Director of Legal Affairs for Compassion & Choices, a national nonprofit organization that works to improve care and expand choice at the end of life, I have worked to protect and expand the rights of terminally-ill patients. My proposed presentation "Social Justice at End of Life: Empowering Terminally Ill Patients with Information and Choice at the End of Life," would address threats to accessing information about end-of-life options, as well as developments to ensure the protection of informed decision-making and access to options. The presentation will review Oregon's and Washington's experiences with aid in dying implications of these states' data will be analyzed.

Learning Areas:
Advocacy for health and health education
Assessment of individual and community needs for health education
Chronic disease management and prevention
Ethics, professional and legal requirements
Other professions or practice related to public health
Public health or related laws, regulations, standards, or guidelines

Learning Objectives:
1. Identify threats to patient autonomy at end of life, including barriers to information and in accessing the desired care ; 2. describe developments to ensure informed decision-making and access to choice; 3. Explain the experience of states with the most progressive policy on end-of-life care choices, and consider the evidence on how progressive policy impacts end of life care; 4. Evaluate implications of the data from states which permit aid in dying to efforts to protect and expand end of life choice in other states; 5. Describe effective advocacy to ensure that terminally-ill patients are able to receive information about a full range of end-of-life care choices, and make informed choices for care based on personal beliefs and values

Keywords: End-of-Life Care, Law

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have led Compassion & Choices since 1996 as President, overseeing advocacy, development, legislative action and client support. She is internationally recognized as an effective champion for individual empowerment, autonomy, choice and freedom in end-of-life health care decisions.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 4095.0: Special Topics in Public Health and Aging