End-of-Life Planning & MAiD Workshop Thru OLLI

This fall, the New Hampshire Alliance for End of Life Options will offer a course through UNH’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI)—an exciting step in bringing practical, informed conversation about end-of-life choices to more people across New Hampshire.

End-of-Life Planning and Options in New Hampshire  is on Zoom, Oct. 22 from 6 – 8 p.m. will be led by Alliance founding director Rebecca Brown and hospice medical director Rick Pollak, M.D. 

You can learn more and enroll at https://www.unh.edu/olli/course/medical-aid-dying-end-life-planning-new-hampshire

Many people have an advance directive. But what happens when serious illness or a medical crisis actually occurs? The course will look at the difference between advance directives and medical orders such as POLST and DNR forms, and at the choices available to people facing serious illness and the end of life.

Participants will also learn about options including stopping unwanted medical treatment and voluntarily stopping eating and drinking (VSED), as well as Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD)—what it is, what it is not, where it is currently legal, and where efforts to authorize it stand in New Hampshire.

Throughout, the emphasis will be practical: understanding the choices, communicating clearly with loved ones and clinicians, and planning ahead so that care reflects what matters most to each person.

For the Alliance, offering this course through OLLI is also an important milestone. It reflects growing interest in open, thoughtful education about serious illness, dying and the choices all of us may one day face.