Two thirds of Americans die in healthcare institutions tethered to machines and tubes at bankrupting costs, even though research shows that most prefer to die at home in comfort, surrounded by loved ones.Dr. Angelo E. Volandes believes that a life well lived deserves a good ending. Through the stories of seven patients and seven very different end-of-life experiences, he demonstrates that what people with a serious illness, who are approaching the end of their lives, need most is not new technologies but one simple thing: The Conversation. He argues for a radical re-envisioning of the patient-doctor relationship and offers ways for patients and their families to talk about this difficult issue to ensure that patients will be at the center and in charge of their medical care.It might be the most important conversation you ever have.

    Some claim that the Warren Commission got it right — that Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, a lone-nut assassin. Others contend that Kennedy was killed as part of a conspiracy. It is not the purpose of this book to engage in that debate. The purpose of this book is simply to focus on what happened at Bethesda Naval Hospital on the evening of November 22, 1963. What happened that night is so unusual that it cries out for truthful explanation even after all these years. In this book, you will learn that 1. Kennedy’s body was actually delivered to the Bethesda morgue twice, at separate times and in separate caskets. 2. Some photographs and x-rays from the autopsy went missing from the record, and other photographs in the record were forged or otherwise fraudulent. 3. The president's body was altered by tampering with the wounds before the autopsy took place. And much more.

    But while the unease is widespread, few outside the profession understand the extent to which the medical system is being distorted. Dr Arun Gadre and Dr Abhay Shukla have gathered evidence from seventy-eight practising doctors, in both the private and public medical sectors, to expose the ways in which vulnerable patients are exploited by a system that promotes unscrupulous medical practices. At a time when the medical sector is growing rapidly, especially in urban areas, with the proliferation of multi-specialty hospitals and the adoption of ever-more sophisticated technologies, rational and ethical medical care is becoming increasingly rare. Honest doctors feel under siege, professional bodies meant to regulate the medical sector fail to do so, and the influence of the powerful pharmaceutical industry becomes even more pervasive.

    From church basements to hospital wards to prison cells, Neumann charts the social, political, religious, and medical landscape to explore how we die today. The Good Death weaves personal accounts with a historical exploration of the movements and developments that have changed the ways we experience death. With the diligence of a journalist and the compassion of a caregiver, Neumann provides a portrait of death in the United States that is humane, beautifully written, and essential to our greater understanding of the future of end-of-life care.

    Despite the many challenges, both internal and external, the country was able to register a 6 per cent average annual growth rate during the first forty years of its existence. The country was ahead of India and Bangladesh in all economic and social indicators. Since 1990, the country has fallen behind its neighbouring countries and has had a decline in the growth rate.This book attempts to examine the reasons behind this slowdown, the volatile and inequitable growth of the last twenty-five years, and through a process of theoretical and empirical evidence argues that the most powerful explanatory hypothesis lies in the decay of institutions of governance. It also suggests a selective and incremental approach of restructuring some key public institutions that pertain to accountability, transparency, security, economic growth, and equity.

    Jim Higley was a forty-year-old bobblehead. Just like those collectible figurines with oversized, bouncy heads, he'd put on a smiling face and bobble through his hectic, overflowing days.Higley's bobbling came to a screeching halt with the diagnosis of cancer, surgery, and a summer of healing. More than a cancer story, however, Bobblehead Dad puts you in a front row seat as the author discovers the illuminating parallels between events in his childhood and his adulthood. Higley, whose weekly fatherhood column appears in the Chicago Tribune's TribLocal, unwraps poignant lessons from his family history with rich, vivid detail. His story reveals meaning in simple moments and the people who fill them--including the surprise discovery of his most important lesson, which had been quietly waiting for over thirty years.

    More than 1.5 million Americans a year die in hospice care—nearly 44 percent of all deaths—and a vast industry has sprung up to meet the growing demand. Once viewed as a New Age indulgence, hospice is now a $14 billion business and one of the most successful segments in health care. Changing the Way We Die, by award-winning journalists Fran Smith and Sheila Himmel, is the first book to take a broad, penetrating look at the hospice landscape.Changing the Way We Die is a vital resource for anyone who wants to be prepared to face life’s most challenging and universal event. You will learn:— Hospice use is soaring, yet most people come too late to get the full benefits.— With the age tsunami, it becomes even more critical for families and patients to choose end-of-life care wisely.— Hospice at its best is much more than a way to relieve the suffering of dying. It is a way to live.

    Environmental journalist Mark Harris examines this new green burial underground, leading you into natural cemeteries and domestic graveyards, taking you aboard boats from which ashes and memorial "reef balls" are cast into the sea. He follows a family that conducts a home funeral, one that delivers a loved one to the crematory, and another that hires a carpenter to build a pine coffin.In the morbidly fascinating tradition of "Stiff, Grave Matters" details the embalming process and the environmental aftermath of the standard funeral. Harris also traces the history of burial in America, from frontier cemeteries to the billion-dollar business it is today, reporting on real families who opted for more simple, natural returns.For readers who want to follow the examples of these families and, literally, give back from the grave, appendices detail everything you need to know, from exact costs and laws to natural burial providers and their contact information.

    The Victorian Book of the Dead unearths extraordinary tales of Victorian funeral fads and fancies, ghost stories, bizarre deaths, mourning novelties, gallows humor, premature burial, post-mortem photographs, death omens, and funeral disasters. Resurrected from original sources, these accounts reveal the oddities and eccentricities of Victorian mourning. Packed with macabre anecdotes, this diverting, yet gruesome collection presents tales ranging from the paranormal and shocking to the heartbreaking.

    Hurley chronicles today’s diabetes epidemic—how the disease has grown so dramatically, why the American Diabetes Association focuses its attention on just a small handful of available treatments, and why the research being done today doesn’t look beyond accepted types of treatments. Just as Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation uncovered the sordid details leading to an epidemic of obesity, Dan Hurley uncovers the hidden truths of what is being researched—and even more importantly, what is not. Diabetes Rising explores both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, one of the leading causes of deaths in the United States. With ground-breaking research and compelling stories seen through an investigative, historical, and narrative lens, Diabetes Rising couples big-picture insight with intimate reporting. The book yields riveting insight into the struggle between the pervasive malady and the medical community’s ongoing search for answers. Informed but not dominated by the author’s own experience as a Type 1 diabetic, Diabetes Rising grants exclusive access to new studies, innovative treatments, and determined patients. Hurley’s sharp, entertaining, and provocative read will change how readers understand diabetes, and the cultures, conditions, and medical climates in which it thrives.

    In this difficult season of the coronavirus pandemic, understanding how to grieve--and help others grieve--is more essential than ever.The Grief Club is Melody Beattie's profoundly personal, powerfully healing book to help readers through life's most difficult times. Part memoir, part self-help book, part journalism, The Grief Club is a book of stories bound together by the human experience of loss in its many forms such as death, divorce, drug addiction, and the tumultuous yet tender process of recovery. It's a book you need to read and share. Twenty years ago, Codependent No More established Melody Beattie as a pioneering voice in self-help literature and endeared her to readers who longed for healthier relationships. Over the years, Melody has invited readers into her life with several more best-selling books--each punctuated with her trademark candor and intuitive wisdom.

    For centuries, religious establishments constructed decorated ossuaries and charnel houses that stand as masterpieces of art created from human bone. These unique structures have been pushed into the footnotes of history; they were part of a dialogue with death that is now silent.The sites in this specially photographed and brilliantly original study range from the Monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Palermo, where the living would visit mummified or skeletal remains and lovingly dress them; to the Paris catacombs; to fantastic bone-encrusted creations in Austria, Cambodia, the Czech Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Germany, Greece, Italy, Peru, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, and elsewhere.Paul Koudounaris photographed more than seventy sites for this book. He analyzes the role of these remarkable memorials within the cultures that created them, as well as the mythology and folklore that developed around them, and skillfully traces a remarkable human endeavor.

    Book by Dunn, Hank

    All of his patients die. Yet he has cared for thousands of patients who, in the face of death, speak of love and grace. Beyond the physical realities of dying are unseen processes that are remarkably life-affirming. These include dreams that are unlike any regular dream. Described as "more real than real," these end-of-life experiences resurrect past relationships, meaningful events and themes of love and forgiveness; they restore life's meaning and mark the transition from distress to comfort and acceptance.Drawing on interviews with over 1,400 patients and more than a decade of quantified data, Dr. Kerr reveals that pre-death dreams and visions are extraordinary occurrences that humanize the dying process. He shares how his patients' stories point to death as not solely about the end of life, but as the final chapter of humanity's transcendence. Kerr's book also illuminates the benefits of these phenomena for the bereaved, who find solace in seeing their loved ones pass with a sense of calm closure.Beautifully written, with astonishing real-life characters and stories, this book is at its heart a celebration of our power to reclaim the dying process as a deeply meaningful one. Death Is But a Dream is an important contribution to our understanding of medicine's and humanity's greatest mystery.

    Janis Amatuzio has found that by listening and talking to loved ones of the deceased, she can offer them a sense of closure. In doing so, she has heard — and here retells — extraordinary stories of spiritual and otherworldly events surrounding the transition between life and death.As in her first book, Forever Ours , Dr. Amatuzio presents the amazing, heartfelt accounts told to her by grieving family members, patients, doctors, nurses, clergy, and police officers. Along with these stories, she shares her own story — reflecting on the course of her career, the bonds she has formed over the years, the lessons she has learned, and her conclusion that “Everything truly is all right.”This powerful book honors the mystery of life and death, exploring the realms of visions, synchronicities, and communications on death’s threshold. Told in the voice of a compassionate scientist who sees death every day, these stories eloquently convey the patterns of truth Dr. Amatuzio has found in what she sees and hears. Beyond Knowing explores the wisdom the living might find in these accounts and shows how that wisdom changes lives.