Dr Michael Chapman used to campaign against voluntary assisted dying.
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Now he wants to educate Canberrans about it.
The director of palliative care at Canberra Health Services has received a grant from the ACT government to teach Canberrans about death and euthanasia.
His research project is called "dying, death literacy and Voluntary Assisted Dying - educating community responses to assisted dying in the ACT."
Dr Chapman is also a geriatrician, which is an expert in caring for old people.
'Difficult moral position'
![Dr Michael Chapman will research community understanding of voluntary assisted dying. Picture by Sitthixay Ditthavong Dr Michael Chapman will research community understanding of voluntary assisted dying. Picture by Sitthixay Ditthavong](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/135763310/97211045-708b-4327-9d72-27b7281952ac.jpg/r0_428_5500_3532_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Assisted dying can be "a really difficult moral position" for doctors, Dr Chapman said.
"I have campaigned against VAD earlier in my career," he said.
"Over time, I've been very affected by realising that my views were out of step with the views of lots of people in Australia.
"Lots of people really feel that this is an important thing that they deserve and require access to, and I'm really sympathetic to that."
Palliative care, or end-of-life care, aims to improve the quality of life of patients who are terminally ill.
![Dr Michael Chapman is a palliative care doctor. Picture by Sitthixay Ditthavong Dr Michael Chapman is a palliative care doctor. Picture by Sitthixay Ditthavong](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/135763310/c39a6c90-f93d-4e97-b477-e3a05bc3cbd8.jpg/r0_562_5500_3666_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Dr Chapman wrote in a 2018 submission to the ACT government that evidence suggests specialist palliative care clinicians are less likely to support assisted suicide.
The Australian and New Zealand Society of Palliative Medicine does not support the legalisation of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, which it says reflects the views of most of its members.
Voluntary assisted dying would not be provided by palliative care healthcare workers, Palliative Care ACT said in a submission to the ACT government in April.
Voluntary assisted dying (VAD) is medically assisted suicide for people who are terminally ill.
Assisted dying laws will likely be introduced in the ACT Legislative Assembly later this year.
They are expected to pass with the support of all major parties.
What a good death looks like
While Dr Chapman understands the community desire for euthanasia, he is also confident most people can have a good death with quality palliative care.
"I'm a palliative care doctor working with people that are close to death and dying all the time. My experience is that with really good palliative care, the very vast majority of people can have really comfortable deaths," he said.
"I'm also really conscious though, because we've heard about this from the community for a long time now, that lots of people don't feel that's enough comfort for them.
"[People] do have different ideas about what a good death means for them and clearly for lots of people, VAD is part of that."
![Dr Michael Chapman at Canberra Hospital. Picture by Sitthixay Ditthavong Dr Michael Chapman at Canberra Hospital. Picture by Sitthixay Ditthavong](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/135763310/146d537a-b746-4e25-8e95-5e8a8dcd7c71.jpg/r0_391_5500_3495_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
VAD not the only way to die
In a 2018 submission to a government inquiry, Dr Chapman said his patients "increasingly express a sense of terror about the dying process".
Even with voluntary assisted dying laws, most people will pass naturally, his submission said.
"It will remain important for ACT residents to have confidence in the support that will be provided to them when they approach dying," he wrote.
He feared a lack of understanding about palliative care in the community will lead people to believe it is only about assisted dying.
Education campaign
The doctor wants to find out what the community doesn't know about dying in the ACT before devising an education campaign.
What the campaign includes will also depend on the assisted dying legislation, but it would focus on death literacy - understanding your end-of-life options.
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"Death and dying is a really difficult topic for people to think through and so many of us don't do that," Dr Chalmers said.
Someone who is close to death or chronically ill, regardless of whether they die by euthanasia or not, may need medical, physical, psychological or spiritual help.
![Dr Nathan D'Cunha, Melissa Parker, Associate Professor Katrina Randall, and Dr Michael Chapman, received ACT government fellowships to support their research. Picture by Sitthixay Ditthavong Dr Nathan D'Cunha, Melissa Parker, Associate Professor Katrina Randall, and Dr Michael Chapman, received ACT government fellowships to support their research. Picture by Sitthixay Ditthavong](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/135763310/013e656e-af12-417b-ab54-1ce61a12e0ef.jpg/r0_562_5500_3666_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Support for Canberrans is out there, Dr Chalmers said, but people might not know it.
"Without actually knowing that those things are options, people often don't really have the amount of preparation that they really could," he said.
"And there's certainly no real plan in place at the moment for how those sorts of things integrate with things like voluntary assisted dying."
MORE RESEARCH:
Four other early and mid-career ACT researchers received funding from the government through the 2022-23 research and innovation fund.
Immunologist Dr Katrina Randall; University of Canberra dementia researcher Dr Nathan D'Cunha; haematologist Dr Philip Choi and endometriosis nurse Melissa Parker shared in the nearly $1 million grant money.
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