Diana Barnard, M.D. (Photo: Carolyn Bates, CarolynBates.com)

(MARCH 29, 2023) Palliative medicine specialist Diana Barnard, M.D., associate professor of family medicine, commented in a New York Times article about a terminally ill Connecticut woman’s desire to take advantage of a Vermont law that allows certain in-state residents to seek and self-administer a lethal dose of medication to hasten their death. (Connecticut is not among the states where medical aid in dying is legal.) The State of Vermont recently waived a residency requirement for the woman — who has late-stage fallopian tube cancer — as part of the settlement of a lawsuit she filed jointly with Dr. Barnard in which she had argued the restriction was unconstitutional. “This really is all about patients,” Barnard said. “It’s about patients who are wanting to live, wanting desperately to live, but having to accept that they are living with an illness that is going to end their life.”