Ira Byock, MD - Palliative Medicine

Dr. Ira Byock reviews medical content for Healthwise, a nonprofit organization with a mission to help people make better health decisions. Dr. Byock has been involved in hospice and palliative care since 1978. He helped establish a hospice home care program in Fresno, California. He is past president of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. He was a founder and principal investigator for the Missoula Demonstration Project, a community-based organization in Montana dedicated to the research and transformation of end-of-life experience.

He was the National Hospice Organization's Person of the Year in 1995. He has also received the National Coalition of Cancer Survivorship's Natalie Davis Springarn Writers Award and the American College of Chest Physicians Roger Bone Memorial Lecture Award.

Dr. Byock has been a featured guest on many national television and radio programs, including NPR's "All Things Considered" and "Fresh Air," ABC's "Nightline," CBS's "60 Minutes," and PBS's "The News Hour."

Healthwise Knowledgebase Topics Reviewed

Care at the End of Life topics

Education

M.D.: University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver

Residency in Family Practice: University of California, San Francisco

Academic\Hospital Appointments

Director of Palliative Medicine, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, NH

Professor, Departments of Anesthesiology and Community and Family Medicine, Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, NH

Research Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Montana

Faculty Member, Practical Ethics Center, University of Montana

Professional Affiliations

Director, Palliative Care Service, Missoula, Montana

Director, Promoting Excellence in End-of-Life Care, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation national grant and technical assistance program

Founder and Principal Investigator, Missoula Demonstration Project

Chief Medical Consultant and Board of Directors, Partnership for Caring, Washington, DC

Board of Directors, National Health Council, Washington, DC

Selected Publications

1. Byock IR (2004). The Four Things That Matter Most, New York: The Free Press.
2. Byock IR (1997). Dying Well: The Prospect for Growth at the End of Life, New York: Riverhead Books.
3. Byock IR (1996). The nature of suffering and the nature of opportunity at the end of life, Clinics in Geriatric Medicine, 12(2): 237-252.

Financial Disclosure

This reviewer reported no financial conflicts.

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