At Compassion Crossing Academy, we offer short, self-directed classes that help you learn with confidence. Each unit is designed for quick, meaningful progress in 30 to 120 minutes. We turn complicated topics into clear guidance you can understand and apply.

Voluntarily stopping eating and drinking is legal in the sense that people have the right to refuse food and water, but that fact alone does not make the situation ethically simple, predictable, or safe to “wing.” This online course is built for end-of-life professionals, support workers, and family caregivers who want to respond with clarity, compassion, and clean boundaries, without making promises the body cannot keep.​

When the question hits.​

You may be doing your work, showing up for a patient or family, and then you hear it, “Can I just stop eating and drinking to die?” The presentation treats that question as sincere, often desperate, and deserving of a thoughtful, informed answer rather than a quick guess.​

People raise VSED because they are suffering, seeking control, fearing a prolonged dying process, or struggling with loss of meaning, and those reasons can be present even when the room is calm on the outside. The helper feels the pull to reassure. Fast.​

And that is where the trouble starts, because honest conversation is not the same as agreeing to be the person who guides someone through VSED. It is also not the same as offering a timeline.​

Where helpers get trapped.​

Timeline pressure is the common spark. The course explicitly states that VSED does not have a predictable timeline, even for someone who is clearly terminal, and warns that “false clarity” can damage trust at the exact moment it is needed.​

The “terminal vs non-terminal” distinction matters more than most people realize, because terminal averages do not apply cleanly to someone who is not clearly dying of a specific illness. The training includes a cautionary real-world scenario where a non-terminal person was given certainty about being in a coma by day ten, only for the family to learn later that non-terminal VSED can last far longer, including documented cases of 47+ days. Betrayal is not always loud.​

Scope is the next trap, quieter and more dangerous. The presentation lists skills that many helpers do not have, including assessing decision-making capacity, recognizing depression or coercion, managing crisis moments, and navigating legal and ethical complexities, and it stresses that good intentions do not replace training.​

Then comes the avoidable collapse: no real plan, no backup, no written foundation. The course frames advance care planning as protection, because during VSED, a person may become confused or unresponsive, and without clear documentation, families can argue, clinicians can hesitate, and care decisions can stall. Add family secrecy and conflict, and the whole system can fracture.​

There is also a cost that does not appear on the chart. The presentation names moral injury as psychological harm that can occur when a helper realizes they influenced a life-ending decision using confidence they did not truly earn.​

What this course changes.​

This course teaches an ethical foundation for responding to VSED questions with honesty, structure, and humility, including when to pause and bring in experienced support. You are trained to resist “certainty language” because certainty is not something VSED reliably offers, and the course emphasizes that truth protects people while false promises trap them.​

You will learn how informed consent is built as a process, not a signature, including confirming that the person understands uncertainty, the reality of round-the-clock support, and that professional medical involvement is expected at some point. You will also learn how to hold conversations that reduce shock and family fallout by getting key people informed early, and by facilitating understanding even when there is disagreement.​

Practical support matters here, not just “knowing about VSED.” The course includes structured tools, like scripts, worksheets, checklists, and planning templates, designed to help you communicate safely, document clearly, and build a support plan that can hold up at 2 a.m. when someone panics. Nothing fancy. Just usable.

The tone is direct for a reason. The presentation includes an educational disclaimer stating that it is not medical or legal advice and encourages consultation with licensed health care providers, attorneys familiar with local law, and clinicians who know the medical situation in detail.​

The instructor is Peter M. Abraham, BSN, RN, EOLD, described in the presentation as a hospice nurse and end-of-life doula with experience across multiple care settings and extensive writing and training in end-of-life care and advance care planning. That blend matters because this topic is both clinical and intensely human.​

Enroll in the class.​

If VSED is showing up in your work, or in your community, this is not the moment to rely on confidence, habit, or someone else’s story. Enroll in “Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking (VSED): Informed Consent, Ethics, and Foundation,” and learn how to respond without timeline promises, without scope creep, and without leaving families to “figure it out” mid-crisis.​

Share the page link, too, if you are part of a team, because VSED support falls apart when only one person knows the guardrails.​