Something to Think About

a blog on end of life

We love sharing helpful info on our blog.

About the BK Team
"We've done the best we can and we can't fix you..."

Someone has to have the courage to say “We’ve done the best we can. We can’t fix you. Let us help you have some quality time”.

The Physician- Top of the Pyramid In Healthcare

The physician is frontline, the top of the pyramid in healthcare. All care follows from there. The physician can set the tone for the entire patient experience. 

Advance Directives Are Not Written In Stone

Filling out an Advance Directive when you are healthy is different than filling one out when you are elderly or living with a serious illness...

Why I Believe a Person Should Be Told They Can't Be Fixed

Number one, we are all going to die at some point. Of course the operative words here are “at some point.” If we are told death will be the outcome...

Let's View Living as More Than the Quantity of Breaths We Take

I want the medical profession, the medical model we find in doctors’ offices and hospitals, to do everything possible to help me not only regain my health, but to return...

How do you tell someone something they don’t want to hear?

It is our job, our responsibility as end of life workers to be honest with our patients. In a “don’t tell mom” situation I first assess where everyone is, who...

Medical Interventions on a  Body That Can’t Be Fixed

How tragic that none can come forward and say, "Your father is dying. Let's stop all these extras and keep him comfortable”. Family as well as many individual physicians do...

NHPCO Hospice Innovator, Barbara Karnes, RN speaks to those who have had a loved one die in a violent way in her new blog, How To Grieve a Violent Death. www.bkbooks.com

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...

During this pandemic, Award Winning Hospice Pioneer, Barbara Karnes, RN speaks to her gratitude for the front line workers keeping our country from falling apart in her article, Can We Ever Thank You Enough, Front Line Workers?

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,...