Mid-South Hospizarbeit und Bioethik Coalition - Who We Are
The Mid-South Hospizarbeit und Bioethik Coalition (MCCC) was formed as a Rallying Points group that has a mission to serve as a broad based community network to educate members of the community and advocate for people with life-threatening illness and end of life concerns. The MCCC was founded in November, 2002, as an outgrowth of the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center College of Nursing 2002 Cashdollar Lecture. The Cashdollar Lectures are an endowed series of annual lectures that supply local health care providers with up to date information to improve the quality of care they give to dying individuals. The MCCC received not-for-profit status in June, 2004.
The goals of the Coalition include:
- Build a broad based community network
- Maintain a speakers’ bureau
- Provide community education via literature, workshops, and symposia
- Inform the community via media and the arts
- Secure ongoing funding
Members of the Coalition come from all areas of the community: education, faith based groups, the arts, entertainment, healthcare providers, caregivers, and the community at large.
The diversity of the group attending monthly Coalition meetings demonstrates our broad base of participation and support. Coalition partners includes Allen Morgan Health Center; Baptist Trinity Hospice; Calvary Episcopal Church; the Catholic Diocese of Memphis; the Church Health Center's Hope and Healing Facility; Crossroads Hospice; Methodist Alliance Hospice; the Mid-South Biomedical Ethics Center(MBEC); Odyssey Healthcare; St. Francis Hospital; Trezevant Manor Retirement Community; and University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Nursing.
Accomplishments include: hosting a 2004 community forum, Matters of Life and Death: Advancing Excellence in End-of-Life Care, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; hosting a follow-up forum, Advancing Excellence in End-of-Life Care: Next Steps, with Tennessee Commissioner of Health, Kenneth Robinson, M.D., as the principal speaker; and partnering with the National Civil Rights Museum and Rhodes College to plan the 2006 Conference on Freedom, Patient Rights and Responsibility.
The Coalition has a Speakers Bureau that makes presentations locally on topics related to advance care planning and end-of-life care. During 2005, the MCCC was funded by the H.W. Durham Foundation to present educational programs to local faith communities, senior groups, retirement facilities, assisted living facilities, and to the staff, resident councils, and family councils of nursing homes.
We also partnered with the MBEC to present the 2006 Cashdollar Lecture, entitled Quality End-of-Life Care for Older Adults: Continuing Life’s Journey. In March, 2008, the MCCC sponsored a free event entitled: Creative Passage, Honoring Life, Encouraging Hope to raise community awareness of the healing power of the arts at the end of life.