We've spotlighted several of our staff members. Today, we would like to shine the light on one of our board members, Betty Rollin.

Betty Rollin is a TV correspondent, accomplished author, and sought-after speaker. A former correspondent for NBC News, her special reports for Nightly News included a series on the Native Americans of Pine Ridge, South Dakota, which won both the duPont and Emmy awards. She now contributes reports for PBS' Religion and Ethics Newsweekly.

Rollin is the author of seven books, including First, You Cry, a moving story—the first of its kind—about her breast cancer and mastectomy. Published in 1976 and re-published in 2000 in honor of the author's 25th "cancer anniversary", it received wide critical acclaim and was made into a television movie starring Mary Tyler Moore as Ms. Rollin.

Kevin Kozin, MTS, LICSW, is a clinical social worker and therapist and formerly worked as a hospice social worker. He's currently a board member of the National Association of Social Workers in Massachusetts and serves as the Chair of the Mental Health and Substance Abuse Committee. He works with adolescents, adults, couples, and families through psychotherapy and grief counseling, which lead to healing results.

The New England Journal of Medicine published an article this April titled, "Implementing a Death with Dignity Program at a Comprehensive Cancer Center". This well-written article takes a candid look at the demographics and experience of a particular cancer center in Washington state, where the Death with Dignity Act has been in effect since March, 2009. Death with Dignity refers to the Washington and Oregon statutes which allow individuals who have six months or fewer to live (as determined by two physicians) and have the capacity to make medical decisions the option to request prescribed medication which allows for a peaceful and painless death.

This blog post is the third in a series of guest posts by Arashi about end-of-life care planning and documentation in honor of National Healthcare Decisions Day.

Last December, Compassion and Choices of Washington unveiled a new kind of advance directive for life planning while living with Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia. This document is the first of its kind focused on these specific challenges. With a similar purpose as the living will, the Alzheimer's and Dementia directive aims to have a person's intentions known when the person isn't in a place to speak for him or herself.

The Alzheimer's directive is different from the usual advance health care directive. An advance health care directive is used to specify what medical actions should be undertaken if the patient is too ill or incapacitated to make those decisions. A typical question for those completing these documents is whether or not the patient wants aggressive medical treatment—such as a feeding tube or artificial ventilation—when the patient is dying or in a persistent vegetative state.

Throughout the week, we keep people up-to-date with information about the Death with Dignity movement and other topics related to end-of-life care through Facebook and Twitter. Below are highlights from this week.

Efforts regarding Death with Dignity:

• The Vermont House of Representatives started hearing testimony on Senate Bill 77 which would make Vermont the third state with a law allowing for physician-assisted death.
• A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine of the program Seattle Cancer Care Alliance created to allow for patient access to Washington's Death with Dignity Act.
• Political strategist Christian Sinderman wrote about the legacy of Booth Gardner and Blair Butterworth.
• Drew Sample interviewed me about Death with Dignity for his Sample Hour podcast.
• Joan Quigley of The Jersey Journal explained why the proposed New Jersey Death with Dignity bill should move forward, and readers responded in support of her stance.
• Through the remarks of Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong, Rod Newman of Missoula, MT helped Christians understand why Death with Dignity laws are "moral ethical and Christian."
• The Montana Senate voted 31-17 to move the bill banning assisted death out of the Judiciary Committee to the floor of the Senate for debate.

When Washington's Death with Dignity Act took effect in 2009, medical groups throughout the state took the law's built-in safeguards as a guide for formulating their own internal policies for honoring their terminally ill patients' new legal rights. One of these institutions, the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, just published an analysis of their experience with patients who requested the prescribed medication in the New England Journal of Medicine. Their conclusion: "Overall, our Death with Dignity program has been well accepted by patients and clinicians."

Echoing what we've seen through the Washington Department of Health's annual reports of usage, this study found the law is used by a small minority of the clinic's patients and "patients and families were grateful to receive the lethal prescription, whether it was used or not."