THIS WEEK ON 
SCIENCE FRIDAY...

The American Medical Association has begun an effort to train doctors in end-of-life care, both in terms of pain management and relating to dying patients. Palliative care programs and other attempts to ease the suffering of patients who are beyond the hope of a cure are becoming more widespread.

What can doctors do to help patients in their last days? If doctors become better at caring for terminally-ill patients, will fewer people feel that suicide is the best way out? And where do two recent decisions of the Supreme Court fit into the picture?

Listen to this program in RealAudio!

Guests:

Kathleen M. Foley
Director, Project on Death in America of the Open Society Institute
Co-Chief of the Pain and Palliative Care Service
Department of Neurology
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
New York, NY

Richard Payne
Chief, Pain and Symptom Management Section
Associate Professor of Medicine
Department of Neuro-Oncology
M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
University of Texas
Houston, TX

Ira Byock
Author, "Dying Well" (published by Putnam)
President
American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine
Missoula, Montana

Books/Articles Discussed:

Related links:

Pain management
The International Association for the Study of Pain
The American Pain Society
The TALARIA project

Hospice and Palliative Care
The American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine
National Hospice Organization

End of life issues
Project on Death in America
Last Acts
DeathNet
The PBS Special "Before I Die"

Supreme Court Decisions on Assisted Suicide
Vacco vs Quill
Washington vs Glucksberg