Something to Think About
a blog on end of life
...Karnes experienced her own loss in September of 2023 with the death of her husband of 63 years, Jack Karnes, who was 89. He had been diagnosed with lung cancer...
Rexburg, Idaho, March 15, 2023—HCP, the leading provider of experience management, training, and reputation management in the post-acute industry, has partnered with Hospice pioneer Barbara Karnes to provide exclusive online...
In her book, “The Final Act of Living: Reflections of a Long-Time Hospice Nurse,” Karnes discusses advance directives and other topics that we should address before our final act of living.
We spent a few minutes with Ms. Karnes this week. Her compassion for hospice workers and grieving families comes through as she tells her story. Specifically, we wanted to know...
Most people fear the act of dying more than they actually fear being dead. And there’s two ways to die. Fast, which is being hit by truck or some other...
"How long?" Karnes says. "That is the most common question that (hospice workers) get from the family. What most don't understand is that there are dynamics to dying."
“Caring for someone who is going live is different from caring for someone who is dying, but most people don’t know that,” Karnes says. “We want this person to get...
Most people working in the field of dying, death, and grieving know about "the little blue book," as it has come to be known. Many hospice and palliative care organizations...
It's a fact that no one wants to talk about dying. In our culture, death is viewed as the enemy to be fought at all costs. Yet, death is a...
“No one dies alone” – Barbara said that all her years of experience have convinced her that we are ushered into the “other world” by the loved ones that have gone...
Karnes said when we find ourselves at the bedside of someone who is dying we are emotionally involved and do not really see what is happening. What is happening is...
When someone we care about, or someone we don’t care about, is dying it is scary and challenging to our idea of how life is supposed to be. Other people...
When I was 16 years old, I was a nurse’s aide in a small hospital. In 1959, hospitals were more like nursing facilities are today; patients were often there for...
Sudden death by accident, suicide and certainly by violence intensifies those normal grief responses. Everything we feel with normal grief is as if we are being held under a magnifying...
What the little blue book gave me and countless others who’ve read it was not the power to defy death. That much is obvious. But it gave us the armor to deny...
Hospice Blue Book:Gone From My Sight was written by award-winning nurse Barbara Karnes and is regarded as the gold standard in literature when it comes to end-of-life education. It comes in paperback and...
During a time of minimized in-person connection and reduced eye contact, expressing our humanity builds a trust that is so needed right now.
As much as we long for human contact, for social exchange other than phone or Zoom, it is not time yet. We are actually jeopardizing how quickly we can reconnect,...
One of the many lessons COVID-19 is teaching us is the precariousness of life. The need to do and say today, for tomorrow may be too late. Today is a...
When someone we care about, or someone we don’t care about, is dying it is scary and challenging to our idea of how life is supposed to be. Other people...
Our healthcare workers on the frontline of this pandemic are facing challenges they didn’t sign up for when they chose to work in the medical arena. They didn’t expect to be...
