Learn about this journalist’s research into “the good death” and what she learned through seven years of study and travel across the U.S.
My guest Ann Neumann is a journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Harper’s magazine, The Baffler, Guernica magazine, and elsewhere. After caring for her father at his end of life she became a hospice volunteer and began to research the meaning of a “good death” in this country, which led to her book The Good Death: An Exploration of Dying in America. She shares some of the things she learned about death as she traveled the country and listened to opinions, beliefs, and stories about what constitutes a good death. Learn more at her website:
This episode includes:
- How Ann’s experience caring for her father at the end of his life inspired her research for the book
- How Ann and her family felt unprepared for the actual dying process even though they were receiving care from hospice
- How the “gentle” marketing of hospice and death care services can obscure the reality of the challenges of dying
- The tragedy of “false hope” being offered to patients rather than factual information
- Where Ann found inspiration for each of the topics she covered in the book (e.g. medical aid in dying, pro-life movement, religious influence on dying, disability issues, prison hospice)
- Why “dignity” can mean something different to people who live with disabilities
- The extensive work needed to overcome racial disparities in end-of-life care and restore trust
Links mentioned in this episode:
- FAC-AZ Annual Meeting in March: Register here (you can attend in person or virtually)
- New ARCHIVES page
- Tutorial: How to Make Difficult EOL Decisions for a Loved One
- Leave me a message by email: kwyattmd@comcast.net, Twitter, Facebook or Instagram
- Support your local bookstore by buying my books on Bookshop and Indiebound: 7 Lessons for Living from the Dying and The Journey from Ego to Soul
- Subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Google, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Stitcher Radio
- Check out the Series I’ve recorded in the past here
- Join the team at Patreon.com/eolu and receive free gifts like the “Mind if we talk about death?” mini-poster or Love Your Life sticker or coffee mug. PLUS get our regular bonuses: the monthly EOL News Update, occasional movie reviews from 2 Doctors and a Movie, and automatic access to A Year of Reading Dangerously!
- Buy me a coffee
- Donate on Paypal
If you enjoy this content please share it with others and consider leaving a review on iTunes. Thanks again to all supporters on my page at Patreon.com/eolu, especially my newest patron Jason P. and thank you also the anonymous person who bought me 5 coffees! Your contributions make all the difference.
