Ira Byock, MD, is director of palliative medicine at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H., and a professor at Dartmouth Medical School.

Byock 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, Calif. 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.

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. The Four Things That Matter Most (2004), is used as a counseling tool widely by palliative care and hospice programs, as well as within pastoral care. His most recent book, The Best Care Possible (2012) tackles the crisis that surrounds serious illness and dying in America and his quest to transform care through the end of life. It has been praised by the Wall Street Journal and recognized by POLITICO as a key issue book for the 2012 presidential campaign.

Byock has been a consistent advocate for the voice and rights of dying patients and their families. He 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), the American College of CHEST Physicians Roger Bone Memorial Lecture Award (2003) and the Outstanding Colleague Award (2008) of the National Association of Catholic Chaplains. He has also received the Community Leadership Award, American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (2011), Compassion in Action Award, Santa Clara University (2011), and the 17th Annual Books for a Better Life Award – Best Book: Wellness, 2013.

He has been a featured guest on numerous national television and radio programs, including NPR's All Things Considered and Talk of the Nation, ABC's Nightline, CBS' 60 Minutes and PBS' The News Hour.