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The American Clinicians Academy on Medical Aid in Dying and Death with Dignity are thrilled to announce the jointly-facilitated 2023 National Clinicians Conference on Medical Aid in Dying — February 17-18 in Portland, Oregon, at the wonderful Revolution Hall. (Usually reserved for rock concerts, but aren’t aid-in-dying clinicians rock stars?)

The incentive for the first, 2020, National Clinicians Conference on Medical Aid in Dying, originated from the pressing need for clinical discussions, explorations and evidence-based knowledge about aid in dying. With 10 states and Washington DC providing for the option of legally assisted deaths, some 22% of the U.S. population has gained access to medical aid in dying. It has become a significant end-of-life option. This has driven the need for increased evidence-based knowledge and clinical care — provided for the first time at the 2020 conference, now to be continued and updated at the 2023 two-day event.

There’s a lot we learned from the first conference in 2020. Clinicians were hungry for information about the direct care of patients considering medical aid in dying, and the conference more than fulfilled that hunger. Even more significant was the deeply emotional camaraderie between some 300 aid-in-dying clinicians gathered for the first time in one place at one time. We’d become so used to working in relative isolation in our medical communities that joining a crowd of deeply caring and committed colleagues literally brought some to tears. And the second day of the conference marked the birth of the Academy, to continue the work.

The American Clinicians Academy on Medical Aid in Dying and Death with Dignity are now pleased to co-facilitate NCCMAID 2023. Please check our website for additional details, from the curriculum and presentations, to hotels and Portland entertainment. Details will also be posted on the Academy’s Listserve, so if you haven’t joined yet please do so here.

Stay tuned — we’re designing a conference that will outshine even NCCMAID 2020.

Looking forward,

Lonny and Peg

Lonny Shavelson, MD
Chair
American Clinicians Academy on Medical Aid in Dying

Peg Sandeen, Ph.D., MSW
Chief Executive Officer
Death with Dignity

About

The incentive for the National Clinicians Conference on Medical Aid in Dying originates from the pressing need for clinical discussions, explorations and evidence-based knowledge about medical aid in dying. In the past three years, Oregon, Montana, Vermont and Washington were joined by California, Colorado, Hawaii and, most recently, New Jersey and Maine, as states with legal access to medical aid in dying. Some 22% of the U.S. population now has access to medical aid in dying, so it has become a significant part of terminal patients’ end-of-life options. And patient requests to consider medical aid in dying as one option at the end of life have driven clinicians’ need to respond with support and knowledge.

A few practitioners most deeply involved in medical aid in dying have fielded an increasing number of questions and concerns from other providers urgently requesting practical information. And while there have been many gatherings to discuss medical aid in dying in policy and social terms, there has been little opportunity for clinicians to learn of evolving bedside practices. 

Doctors, nurses, social workers, chaplains, clinical ethicists, pharmacists, hospices and more have been providing and managing this care without formal training or information sharing. They are craving knowledge of and training in standards of care and best practices—everything from prognoses to pharmacology, from the role of hospice teams to evaluations of decision-making capacity, or what “self-administration” means in the real world. In short, there is now a significant need and demand for a conference for those at the bedside.

The National Clinicians Conference on Medical Aid in Dying is organized by a respected board of advisors, including representatives from UCSF, UC San Diego, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, the University of Colorado, and practitioners from multiple hospices and end-of-life care organizations. The conference will take place on February 14 and 15, 2020, at the University of California, Berkeley.  CME and CE credits will be available for the practitioners who attend.

We have chosen to keep the two-day conference fee within reason for as many practitioners as possible, with physicians/pharmacists/NPs/administrators at $500 and all others at $400, including CME/CE credits and lunch and snacks on both days.  A limited number of scholarships will be available with appropriate requests that demonstrate financial need.

In short, the first National Clinicians Conference on Medical Aid in Dying is now a reality, and we invite all who are interested to attend. Stay tuned at www.nccmaid.org for updates.