Education

Knowledge is power. To advocate for our own end of life care, we need to know our rights and make plans. End of Life Choices New York educates the general public, students, and health care professionals about end of life issues.

EOLCNY staff and board members have given hundreds of lectures, workshops and professional in-services on palliative care, pain management and patient rights to thousands of professionals and lay persons, and at nursing, medical, social work and law schools. We have spoken at over 60 senior centers and retirement communities and at numerous meetings and conferences.

In recent years we have been a plenary speaker at Consortium of New York Geriatric Education Centers Conferences (twice); Jewish Home Life Care Annual Palliative Care Conference, Westchester/NYS Southern Region; Collaborative for Palliative Care Conferences (twice); The Open Center; and Westchester Medical Group at West Harrison and Rye. We have presented at the New York Academy of Medicine, State Society on Aging of New York Conferences (four times), the Hospice and Palliative Care of New York State Annual Meeting (twice), as well as at several medical centers or medical schools including New York Presbyterian Hospital, Mt. Sinai Medical Center, Albany Medical Center, Upstate University Medical School, North Shore LIJ and Lawrence Hospital.

We have sponsored or co-sponsored events at which leaders in the health and end of life field have presented. Speakers have included, among others, Timothy Quill, MD, Director of Palliative Care at the University of Rochester Medical Center and plaintiff in lawsuits seeking to achieve Medical Aid In Dying; Tim Kirk, an an associate professor of philosophy at CUNY who is an ethics consultant to hospices across the country; David Muller, MD, Dean of Medical Education at Mt. Sinai Icahn School of Medicine and a co-founder of the Visiting Doctors Program; Jane Brody, New York Times health columnist; Marilyn Webb, PhD, author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated book “The Good Death: The New American Search to Reshape the End of Life”; Tia Powell, MD, PhD, former Executive Director, New York State Task Force on Life and the Law; Hon. Richard Gottfried, Chair, New York State Assembly Health Committee.

At more than 50 conferences where we have tabled, and at various other presentations, we have discussed and distributed thousands of health care proxy forms and other relevant documents, including Medical Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment (MOLST), and documents on pain, palliative care, getting health care wishes respected, and end of life treatment and choices, including hospice, voluntarily stopping eating and drinking, and Medical Aid In Dying.