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Weekly TweetChats! Join Us Thursdays

posted by Melissa Barber on January 23, 2012

After a brief break for the holidays, our TweetChats will return this Thursday, and with the help of some friends on Twitter, these chats will now be weekly! Please join us online to discuss different aspects of death and dying. Not sure what a TweetChat is? Learn more about them below.

This upcoming TweetChat will be about a blog post that made waves throughout the online end-of-life care community, "How Doctors Die, It's Not Like the Rest of Us, But It Should be." The article relates the story of the a retired physician's friend—also a doctor—who was diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer, and how in general, doctors tend to opt for less-aggressive treatment in their own end-of-life care.

To give you a little primer, here are the discussion topics for the TweetChat:

• Why do you think doctors tend to opt for less aggressive end-of-life care than they would recommend for their patients?
• How might the fact that some physicians are better communicators impact the EOL choices patients make?
• A reaction to "How Doctors Die" suggested showing videos of heroic procedures. Good Idea? Why or why not?

New to Twitter and TweetChats? Here are some easy steps to join in the fun:

• When: Thursday, January 26, from 6pm to 7pm Eastern (3pm to 4pm Pacific)
• Where: TweetChat in the #DWDchat room. Once you're on the webpage for the #DWDchat, this hashtag will automatically be added to your tweet.
• How:
  1. Sign up on Twitter today
  2. Follow us (we always follow-back)
  3. Click here to go to the TweetChat site
  4. Authorize TweetChat to use your Twitter account by clicking "Sign In"
  5. You're ready to join the discussion!
• Questions? Email me.

This TweetChat is part of our weekly conversations about different aspects of end-of-life care, including Death with Dignity laws. Through TweetChats, Twitter allows an open and candid discussion about a particular subject indicated by a hashtag. (Learn more about hashtags here.) Since we'll chat about Death with Dignity, we'll use #DWDchat as our hashtag. By participating in our TweetChats and tweeting publicly about Death with Dignity you:

• Raise awareness about Death with Dignity
• Find and meet others who support Death with Dignity
• Let your friends and family know why everyone should have the opportunity to determine the manner and timing of their own deaths when faced with a terminal illness.

Defend dignity. Take action.

You are the key to ensuring well-crafted Death with Dignity laws for all Americans. With your financial and volunteer help, the Death with Dignity National Center, a 501(c)(3), non-partisan, non-profit organization, has been the leading advocate in the death with dignity movement. Member contributions helped us pass a new Death with Dignity law in Washington, defend the Oregon law, and provide education and outreach programs for the vitality of the death with dignity movement.

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The greatest human freedom is to live, and die, according to one's own desires and beliefs. From advance directives to physician-assisted dying, death with dignity is a movement to provide options for the dying to control their own end-of-life care.

Death with Dignity National Center is the leader in this movement, successfully establishing, advancing and defending the landmark Oregon and Washington Death with Dignity Acts.

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