In order to promote and monitor the initiatives already under way to improve health professionals' education and to consider what additional steps may need to be taken, the committee encourages the Institute of Medicine to organize, within the next one to three years, a symposium on the education of health professionals in care at the end of life. The objective would be to assess progress and identify directions for further efforts to ensure that physicians, nurses, social workers, and others have the attitudes, knowledge, and skills to care well for those approaching death.