Ira Byock, M.D.

Ira Byock, MD is Director of Palliative Medicine at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire and a Professor at Dartmouth Medical School.
He has been involved in hospice and palliative care since 1978, during his residency.  At that time he helped found a hospice home care program for the indigent population served by the university hospital and county clinics of Fresno, California.  He is a Past President (1997) of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. During the 1990s he was a co-founder and principal investigator for the Missoula Demonstration Project, a community-based organization in Montana dedicated to the research and transformation of end-of-life experience locally, as a demonstration of what is possible nationally.  From 1996 through 2006, he served as Director for Promoting Excellence in End-of-Life Care, a national grant program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

 

Dr. Byock has authored numerous articles on the ethics and practice of hospice, palliative and end-of-life care. His first book, Dying Well, (1997) has become a standard in the field. He has been an advocate for the voice and rights of dying patients and their families. His most recent book, The Four Things That Matter Most, (2004) is published by the Free Press.   

Dr. Byock has been the recipient of the National Hospice Organization’s Person of the Year (1995), the National Coalition of Cancer Survivorship’s Natalie Davis Spingarn Writers Award (2000), and the American College of CHEST Physicians Roger Bone Memorial Lecture Award (2003).  Dr. Byock has been a featured guest on numerous national television and radio programs, including NPR: All Things Considered and Fresh Air, ABC Nightline, CBS 60 Minutes and PBS The News Hour.  

 

Dr. Byock currently holds the following positions: 

  • Chair, Palliative Medicine, Dartmouth Medical School
  • Director of Palliative Medicine, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
  • Professor, Dartmouth Medical School, Departments of Anesthesiology and Community and Family Medicine