Hospice Staff Support Groups

Confidentiality

• Do not share ANY patient information, including names, medical details, or identifying characteristics. Advice on specific cases will NOT be provided. (please consider contacting the Academy’s Clinicians Hotline for those questions).
• Participants agree to speak ONLY for themselves. Please refrain from naming the agency you currently work for or any past agencies. This ensures that discussions stay personal and do not represent any organization.
• What is shared in the group remains within the group. Participants must commit to not discussing other members’ stories, feelings, or disclosures outside of the group.

Focus on the topic of aid-in-dying care

• We will discuss aid-in-dying care as it is practiced legally in the United States by clinicians working within those parameters with patients who are legally accessing it.
• Keep the topic of conversation relevant to aid-in-dying care.
• No political lobbying or advocacy, even if it relates to aid in dying care. The Academy is tightly focused on teaching clinical care; we do not lobby for laws in additional states nor changes to the existing laws. Many organizations do this, so please work with those organizations for your advocacy work.
• No announcements, advertisements, or fundraising. If you have a course, conference, group, book, or organizational event to promote, contact AADM@AADM.org for permission. Our support groups must not become a forum of advertisements or unvetted programs, publications, fundraisers, or events.

Respectful Communication

• Speak only for yourself.
• Listen actively and without interruption.
• Refrain from offering unsolicited advice or reassurance to allow participants to process in their own way.
• Ask (politely and specifically) for whatever feedback you need; help others understand, and trust that you will be accountable for yourself.

Academy Facilitator Role

• The facilitator will guide the discussion, not provide detailed medical advice, but may share general resources if requested.
• The Academy staff reserves the right to reject participants from the group.

Online Chat Group Etiquette (in addition to the above)

• Advance the conversation. Avoid redundancy when possible; look through the previous posts to see if your question has been addressed recently.