With the End in Mind: Dying, Death, and Wisdom in an Age of Denial

For readers of Atul Gawande and Paul Kalanithi, a palliative care doctor's breathtaking stories from 30 years spent caring for the dying.

Modern medical technology is allowing us to live longer and fuller lives than ever before. And for the most part, that is good news. But with changes in the way we understand medicine come changes in the way we understand death. Once a familiar, peaceful, and gentle -- if sorrowful -- transition, death has come to be something from which we shield our eyes, as we prefer to fight desperately against it rather than accept its inevitability.

Dr. Kathryn Mannix has studied and practiced palliative care for thirty years. In With the End in Mind, she shares beautifully crafted stories from a lifetime of caring for the dying, and makes a compelling case for the therapeutic power of approaching death not with trepidation, but with openness, clarity, and understanding. Weaving the details of her own experiences as a caregiver through stories of her patients, their families, and their distinctive lives, Dr. Mannix reacquaints us with the universal, but deeply personal, process of dying.

With insightful meditations on life, death, and the space between them, With the End in Mind describes the possibility of meeting death gently, with forethought and preparation, and shows the unexpected beauty, dignity, and profound humanity of life coming to an end.

• At Peace: Choosing a Good Death After a Long Life
• Advice for Future Corpses (and Those Who Love Them): A Practical Perspective on Death and Dying
• The Graceful Exit: 10 Things You Need to Know: Face Reality, Make Wise Choices and Find Hope at the End of Life
• Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer
• Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I've Loved
• The Conversation: A Revolutionary Plan for End-of-Life Care
• The End of Old Age: Living a Longer, More Purposeful Life
• Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
• You Can Stop Humming Now: A Doctor's Stories of Life, Death, and in Between
• Modern Death: How Medicine Changed the End of Life