Wed • Oct
28

Wednesday, October 28, 2020

4:00PM-5:30PM

Wednesday, October 28, 2020

4:00pm - 5:30pm

Hosted virtually on Zoom

Sponsored by The New York Academy of Medicine's Sections on Nursing and Healthy Aging, and End of Life Choices New York

Please join us for a dialogue sponsored by The New York Academy of Medicines Sections on Nursing and Healthy Aging, and End of Life Choices New York. 

The Medical Aid in Dying Act, A. 2694, S. 3947, with almost 60 sponsors, is now being seriously considered in the New York State Legislature. Despite the significant clinical implications of this legislation, many healthcare professionals are unaware of what medical aid in dying entails and the legal, ethical, clinical and practical arguments for and against the proposed law. Knowledgeable workshop panelists will present useful information from their professional perspectives on medical aid in dying and this legislation. 

Event attendees will learn:

  1. What medical aid in dying is and what it is not.
  2. How medical aid in dying has worked in jurisdictions that authorize this end of life option, in nine states and Washington, DC. 
  3. What the key provisions are in New York’s proposed Medical Aid in Dying Act, including requirements, safeguards and protections.   
  4. The primary arguments for and against medical aid in dying in New York State.

Panelists:

"An Overview and History of Medical Aid in Dying"
David C. Leven, JD
Executive Director Emeritus and Senior Consultant
End of Life Choices New York

"The Medical Aid in Dying Act"
Assembly Member Karines Reyes
Assembly Member, 87th District

"Why Medical Aid in Dying Should be an End of Life Option"
David Muller, MD
Dean for Medical Education
Professor and System Chair, Medical Education, Professor of Medicine
The Mount Sinai Hospital

"Why Medical Aid in Dying Should Not be an End of Life Option"
Lydia Dugdale, MD, MAR
Dorothy L. and Daniel H. Silberberg Associate Professor of Medicine
Director, Center for Medical Ethics
Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
Associate Director of Clinical Ethics
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Irvine Medical Center

"Medical Aid in Dying: A Nursing Perspective"
Mary Ellen Tresgallo, DNP, MPH, BC-FNP, ACHPN
Assistant Professor of Nursing in Anesthesiology
Columbia University School of Nursing

Moderator: Ayana Woods, MPH
Executive Director
End of Life Choices New York

Closing Remarks
Allison P. Squires, PhD, RN, FAAN
Associate Professor
NYU Rory Meyers College of Nusing

Panelist and Moderator Bios

Lydia Dugdale, MD, MAR (ethics), is the Dorothy L. and Daniel H. Silberberg Associate Professor of Medicine at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and Director of the Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. She also serves as Associate Director of Clinical Ethics at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Irvine Medical Center. A practicing internist, Dugdale moved to Columbia in 2019 from Yale University, where she previously served as Associate Director of the Program for Biomedical Ethics. Her scholarship focuses on end-of-life issues, medical ethics, and the doctor-patient relationship. She edited Dying in the Twenty-First Century (MIT Press, 2015) and is author of The Lost Art of Dying Well (HarperOne, 2020), a popular press book on the preparation for death. 

David C. Leven, JD, is the Executive Director Emeritus of and Senior Consultant to End of Life Choices New York (EOLCNY). He served as its Executive Director between 2002 and 2016. An expert on advance care planning, patient rights, palliative care and end of life issues, David has played a key leadership role in having legislation introduced and enacted in New York to improve pain management, palliative care and end of life care. This legislation includes, among others laws, the Palliative Care Education and Training Act, the Palliative Care Information Act (PCIA) and a law on Continuing Medical Education (CME).  A graduate of the University of Rochester and Syracuse University College of Law, David is a recipient of numerous awards. These include, among others, the Public Interest Law Award of the New York State Bar Association, Committee on Public Interest Law and the Westchester Civil Liberties Union, Civil Liberties Award. In 1999 he was the Distinguished Public Interest Lawyer in Residence at Touro Law School. David lectures frequently to diverse professional groups and the general public on health care decision making and end of life issues. He has been a regular guest lecturer at Fordham Graduate School of Social Service and College of New Rochelle School of Nursing. He has spoken at over 60 senior centers and retirement communities and at numerous meetings and conferences. He has presented at the New York Academy of Medicine, the State Society on Aging of New York Conferences, the Hospice and Palliative Care of New York State Annual Meeting and at several medical centers. He has also lectured at all of the New York City area law schools as well as at Yale, Syracuse and Albany law schools.

David Muller, MD, received his BA from Johns Hopkins University and his MD from New York University School of Medicine. He completed his Internship and Residency in Internal Medicine at The Mount Sinai Medical Center, where he spent an additional as Chief Resident. Upon completing his training Dr. Muller co-founded and directed the Mount Sinai Visiting Doctors Program. Visiting Doctors is now the largest academic physician home visiting program in the country. In May 2005 Dr. Muller was appointed Dean for Medical Education. His recent honors include the Department of Medicine's Ruth Abramson Humanism in Medicine Award in 2005, induction into the Gold Humanism Honor Society in 2004, and the Casita Maria Community Builder Award in 2002. Dr. Muller is Associate Professor of Medicine and Medical Education and is a Fellow of The New York Academy of Medicine.

Karines Reyes has been a Bronxite for over 20 years. Born in the neighborhood of Los Mina, Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, she identifies as an Afro-Latina. She is a registered nurse in the Oncology Department at Montefiore Einstein Hospital. Karines has two young sons and has been balancing the tasks of being a nurse, union representative, activist and volunteer without neglecting the duties of her most important job – being a mother. Assembly Member Reyes, during her brief tenure in the New York State Assembly, has distinguished herself as a leader on issues impacting public health and workers’ rights in New York State. She has enacted protections for working mothers seeking to lactate for their infant children, while they are in the workplace. The Assembly Member passed landmark legislation to provide enhanced whistleblower protections for health care workers, who expose inadequate patient care and workplace safety standards. Additionally, she has fought for other progressive causes, such a bill making it easier for all eligible seniors to be automatically enrolled into rent relief programs, a bill to ensure that the most vulnerable in society can have access to purchase hot meals with SNAP benefits, and a bill to extend our state’s eviction moratorium to truly help residents recover from the COVID-19 crisis. She proudly serves as a member of the Assembly committees on Labor, Aging, Social Services, Housing, and Alcoholism & Drug Abuse.

Allison P. Squires, PhD, FAAN, RN, is an associate professor and director of the Florence S. Downs PhD Program in Nursing Research & Theory Development at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing. She was the 2019–2020 Distinguished Nurse Scholar in Residence for the National Academy of Medicine where she worked on the consensus study for the next Future of Nursing 2020–2030 report. An internationally recognized health services researcher, Squires has led or participated in studies covering 38 countries, with current active projects Mexico, Ghana, and the European Union. She is also leading the international arm of a COVID-19 study that examines how the global pandemic has affected clinical nursing practice on the frontlines. Domestically, her research focuses on improving immigrant and refugee health outcomes with a special interest in breaking down language barriers during the healthcare encounter.  Squires has consulted with the Migration Policy Institute and the World Bank on nursing and health workforce issues and produced several major policy analyses with their teams. A prolific writer, Squires has authored over 150 publications, including 100+ in peer-reviewed journals. She serves as an associate editor of the International Journal of Nursing Studies (the top- ranked nursing journal in the world), the research editor for the Journal of Nursing Regulation, and an Associate Editor for BMC Health Services Research.  Prior to entering academia full time, Squires worked as a staff nurse in solid organ transplant and as a staff educator for 11 years in the US healthcare system.  Squires completed her PhD at Yale University, MSN at Duquesne University, and BSN at the University of Pennsylvania. She completed a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Health Outcomes Research at the University of Pennsylvania. In addition to her primary appointment at the College of Nursing, she holds affiliated faculty appointments with the Grossman School of Medicine, Center for Latin American Studies, and the Center for Drug Use and HIV Research at NYU.

Mary Ellen Tresgallo, DNP, MPH, BC-FNP, ACHPN, has spent her career on the front lines of Medicine and Nursing in the care of critically ill and complex medical patients. As a nurse of over 30 years, she has extensive clinical experience in the care of critically ill adults and children in hematology/oncology, intensive care, cardiology, pain and symptom management and palliative care. She holds a Doctor of Nursing Practice and a Master’s in Public Health in Health Policy and Management from Columbia University and is a board-certified family nurse practitioner. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Nursing at Columbia University School of Nursing (CUSON) in Anesthesiology in Pediatric Pain Medicine and Advanced Illness. Dr. Tresgallo has been lead faculty for the palliative care subspecialties at CUSON for adults and in pediatrics. She is also inaugural faculty for the doctoral/post-doctoral DNP Fellowship in Palliative Care; the first such fellowship at the time of its inception for DNP graduates in the country. Her global work in palliative care is with the Office of Global Initiatives at Columbia University School of Nursing where she co-leads palliative care curricula development in Haiti. She is board certified as an advanced practice nurse in both hospice and palliative care. She is currently faculty at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons Program in Women and Children’s Bioethics and a lead ethics consultant at NYP-Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital. Dr. Tresgallo served as the Chairman of the Pediatric Ethics Committee at NYP-Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital from 2015-2018 and as Vice Chairman of the Pediatric Ethics Committee from 2011- 2015. She is currently a standing member of both the pediatric and adult ethics committees at CUIMC. She lectures in the Pediatric Ethics elective in the Masters in Bioethics Program at Columbia University. She has completed extensive course work in Mediation and has met the guidelines set by the New York State Office of Court Administration to be a Community Mediator for the Queens Mediation Network. She has published numerous papers as well as co-authored book chapters and sits on local and regional boards in palliative care. Her commitment remains to bear witness to complex medical patients and their families and to be on that journey with them and her medical, nursing and care team colleagues.

Ayana Woods is a public health professional with over 20 years of experience in developing health education and outreach programs to promote wellness, successful management of chronic illness, and patient empowerment. She has supervised the curriculum development and delivery of over 400 webinars, trainings, and workshops for healthcare professionals and the general public. She is passionate about addressing health disparities and has created a multitude of culturally appropriate interventions for under-served populations. She has launched several bilingual initiatives to facilitate access to Spanish speaking audiences and programs in unique community settings such as beauty salons. She served as the Director of Education for the National Hemophilia Foundation and worked with the CDC as a Principal Investigator to launch the largest online resource for people with bleeding disorders. She has also worked with a variety of national and local nonprofit organizations including the Guttmacher Institute, The Wallace Foundation, Arthritis Foundation, One Love Foundation, and March of Dimes.Ayana has a BA in Sociology and African American studies from Princeton University and a Master of Public Health in Health Behavior and Health Education from the University of North Carolina.

Click here for a PDF of Speaker and Moderator Biographies