Coming to Terms with Dying

Portland, OR, 2000

Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) wanted to help Oregonians learn about and use advances in end-of-life planning and care. Though Oregon has received much publicity for its legalization of doctor-assisted suicide, the stories of end-of-life care and decision-making changed in the wake of that decision. Through this project, OPB provided extensive reporting on those developments and their partners worked to improve access to the knowledge and resources available in those fields.

OPB prepared a series of six radio stories, each exploring a different topic, including the introduction and use of the POLST (Physician's Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment) form and the role of people's spiritual outlook in the decisions they make about their own deaths. Each story aired on their statewide news program and served as an introduction to a series of one-hour call-in programs. The sensitive nature of the subject matter was successful in part because of the cooperation of OPB's community partners to expose OPB and its audience to people and places that were unfamiliar.

In addition to call-in programs, OPB deployed its on-air pledge telephone bank for a special community event that connected individuals with end-of-life decision-making. A one-day workshop was also developed, for health care providers to educate people at the community level about their choices and the implications of those choices. These resources, including archived audio programs, were made available on OPB's Web site.

The outreach component of the project was coordinated by Oregon Health Forum, an independent health newsletter, and included collaborative efforts with an outreach group already in place to foster public involvement connected with the national PBS series On Our Own Terms: Moyers and Dying, which aired in October 2000 and covered similar issues. Because of the success of Coming to Terms with Dying, OPB and its community partners are collaborating on additional programming concerning health policy.

Contact Information

KOPB-FM/KOAC-AM (Oregon Public Broadcasting)
Morgan Holm, Director of News and Public Affairs
Tel: 503-293-1975

Oregon Health Forum
Diane Lund, Editor
Tel: 503-226-7870

Awards:

KOPB-FM/KOAC-AM Round Two
National Headliner Award for Public Service in Radio Journalism
— The Press Club of Atlantic City