Something to Think About

By Your Side offers guidance in the area of making choices: cure, life sustaining, comfort care, making advanced directives, and funeral planning. It details signs of approaching death (what to look...

The more you learn about end of life, what happens, what it looks like, the less fear you will bring to the experience and with less fear you can get...

I often get the question, "How do I start an end of life discussion? How do I get my family to talk about what they want their dying to be...

I keep shouting from the roof top to hospitals, hospices, home health care agencies, and nursing facilities, “TAKE CARE OF YOUR PEOPLE!!!!!” How can we expect healthcare workers to continue...

With all the loss that we are experiencing during this pandemic, it isn't just physical death that we are mourning. End of Life Expert Barbara Karnes, RN has some grief...

 Know that all of these signs of approaching death, whether indicating months or weeks, are just guideposts. Some people will show all of them...

Our children are not supposed to die before we do. I cannot think of any grief more intense than watching our child deteriorate before our eyes. We grieve their dying...

Our job as an end of life specialist is to address the elephant in the room, to be direct and honest in the gentlest way possible. We are not doing...

Our frontline workers: nurses, nursing assistants, doctors, hospital employees, first responders, housekeeping, grocery, delivery, and transportation personnel, all people who are out front while most of us shelter in place,...

I am now writing this. Here is what I am thinking: The way I have lived my life up to now will probably be changed forever. How long physical distancing...

There are many of the same circumstances with today’s coronavirus as we faced with  HIV/AIDS in the early years— lack of medical knowledge, lack of guidance, and fear. I think...

Touch in with the families, “What’s happening? Do you need anything?” Use the same volunteer for each family to develop confidence and bonding. You are saving your staff while providing a sense...

Isolation from others is teaching me this about my self ——- I do a lot for others, for their thoughts of me, why else do I wear makeup? Get dressed?...

We do this all the time. We enter tense situations where people are frightened and unsure, with people who have never seen us before. This is what we do: We create...

You have to walk the walk before you can talk the talk. Learn from your patient/family interactions. At the same time read everything you can get your hands on...

Hospice has worked with nursing facilities for many years now. Our relationship  and interactions with patients and their families is now better understood and better defined. That said, some nursing facilities...

I am sharing this letter and my response because this family is not the only family that has carried memories, sometimes for years, of situations that occurred as their loved...

...I remember being with my mother in my hospice Medical Director’s office. He was explaining to my mother his medical findings as they related to her illness. I, being a...

This is the story that came to mind when I decided to write a blog for National Social Work month. Social work, to me, is about saying the right words...

Often after a person dies we forget that there is no perfect relationship, that there are easy times and difficult times. Somehow once a person dies we elevate them to...

At 8:17pm she took one more breath and then at 8:18 there was one more which I describe as hot caramel pouring onto vanilla ice cream. It was the most...