The topic of death and dying is written about frequently and encompasses a broad spectrum of human experience. Use this group to share & review books that you find useful in your hospice work.

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Surviving Hospice: A Chaplain's Journey into the Big Business of Dying

Recently Published!!
by Maryclaire Torinus

Surviving Hospice: A Chaplain's Journey into the Big Business of Dying Plus: How To Find a Trustworthy Hospice 

This narrative is an insider’s look into the hijacking of hospice by private equity and professional investors and the subsequent harm to patients, their families, and to the interdisciplinary clinical teams. It was released by a NYC publisher on October 31, 2023. For sale on Amazon.

The author, a hospice chaplain, tells end-of-life stories of her patients who were harmed by financially-motivated policies. This is a book for anyone who is embarking on making a choice about a hospice for their loved one, working chaplains, those in training, and those interested in what dying is like with a hospice who places patients as their primary stakeholders.

Maryclaire's experience working for an owner who sold to a private equity firm helped her to realize that the reputation and viability of hospice is in jeopardy. Her goal is to alert all who love hospice to rid it of professional investors.

— Stacy Juba, author, editor, and award-winning health journalist

"Maryclaire Torinus speaks with authority, providing this essential handbook for choosing a hospice care team and why that selection really matters."

— Laura Kukowski, CEO, editor, For-Profit Badger Hospice, LLC

"Powerful, beautifully written, and eye-opening, this book spotlights the inner workings of a multi-billion-dollar industry and the effect on patients, families, and hospice staff. The author shares poignant accounts of hospice at its best and worst and the hard-hitting truths she learned on her journey. A must-read for family members exploring hospice care."

— Greg Schneider President, HVA, co-author of The Changing Face of Hospice Volunteering in Hospice and Palliative Care 

"When I first found out that Maryclaire Torinus was writing this book, I immediately contacted her because in my 25+ years supporting hospice volunteers, I have seen a gradual decline in the quality of care volunteers are permitted to provide the dying and their families. There are a variety of reasons for this that I describe in the Foreward of this book. Maryclaire provides invaluable insights that everyone should know, along with solutions to help others make the right choice in choosing a hospice."

Buy Now

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The Changing Face of Volunteering in Hospice and Palliative Care

The Changing Face of Volunteering in Hospice and Palliative Care
Contributing Author - Greg Schneider
HCF Creator & HVA President

Volunteers have a long history of supporting the development and delivery of hospice and palliative care in most countries throughout the world. As hospice and palliative care services anticipate significant increasing and changing demands, it is recognized that volunteers have a vital role to play in supporting the future delivery of services. However, as society changes so too does volunteering.

This multi-author text explores the complex phenomenon of hospice and palliative care volunteering from an international perspective and considers the influence on volunteering of different cultures and constructs. The book also explores the likely impact of changes in hospice and palliative care on volunteers and considers how and why volunteering itself is changing and the subsequent implications for managers, organizations, and policy makers.

This book does not attempt to offer solutions to the many challenges ahead, but rather poses questions that may help to reflect on new possibilities and opportunities.

Review

"The book is well laid out and written in an easy to use manner. It begins with setting the scene of volunteering and the modern context of hospice and palliative care. The book is well referenced and covers a range of topics making for a balanced and thought provoking read." -- Nursing Times

"If you run a palliative care volunteer service, or a palliative care service with a volunteer program, you need to read this book. Not only will it give you an in-depth view of where things are at, but also how things are changing in countries from around the world." -- Roger Woodruff, IAHPC Newsletter

 

Editors

Ros Scott, Honorary Research Fellow, University of Dundee, UK and Co-chair, EAPC Task Force on Volunteering in Hospice and Palliative Care. She is a researcher and voluntary sector consultant with a background in organisational development, research and the development of volunteering and of palliative care organisations. 

Steven Howlett, Deputy Director at Roehampton Business School, London, UK where he teaches undergraduate and post graduate courses in management and ethics. Previously he was Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Volunteering research where he completed many studies on volunteering.
 
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Grace Before Dying

Grace Before Dying is a photographic exhibition by Lori Waselchuk about hospice in prisons.

"Lori Waselchuk's vision finds the humane in the broadest landscape or interior view while her passion provides us all with the chance to experience it in close—so close—and deeply." ~ Roy Flukinger, Senior Research Curator at the Harry Ransom Center

Grace Before Dying charts the extraordinary breakthrough in humanity that has helped transform one of the most dangerous maximum security prisons in the United States, Louisiana's notorious Angola prison, into one of the least violent. Poignant quotes from the incarcerated hospice volunteers and patients accompany the searing photographs set in a carefully built sequence that charts the development of a culture of caring and compassion that challenges stereotypes of incarcerated people, and provides an intimate perspectives on what long-term and life sentences signify for those inside.

To purchase your signed book, or learn about Umbrage's limited edition print offer, please click here.

http://www.gracebeforedying.org/

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Comments

  • Joyce Marie Sheldon November 2, 2011 at 9:55am

     Here is Hospice International's endorsement of From Fear to Faith, A Caregiver's Journey:

    "This book is a tasteful collection of poems, prayers and meditations that I think would be useful to any caregiver dealing with end-of-life issues. It is very much in the spirit of palliative care—where you may be unable to add days to the life, you add life (and meaning) to the days. Reading how one couple achieved this would be both comforting and inspirational to others in a similar situation."

     

    Visit my website, mention this site, and receive a special gift when you order this book.  It should be in every nurse's and social worker's briefcase.

     

    Blessings,

    Joy



     
    Roger Woodruff,
    Director of Palliative Care
    Hospice International

  • Joyce Marie Sheldon October 30, 2011 at 1:29pm

    Visit my website

    My first book, From Fear to Faith, A Caregiver's Journey, forms the basis for keynotes, conferences, workshops and retreats for hospice and home care staff, volunteers and family caregivers.

     

    Endorsed by Hospice International and Dr. Christiane Northrup, noted author and advocate for women's health, this book takes you on a journey from fear to faith, from tears to triumph.  It creates a valid lesson for dealing with any type of loss - loss of job, relationship, financial security and the illness and death of a loved one.

     

    Blessings,

    Joy

     

  • Joellyn St. Pierre November 15, 2009 at 9:20am
    I would like let you know about the book I wrote. It is called "The Art of Death Midwifery: An Introduction and Beginner's Guide." It offers something that I believe has not been offered before: a step by step method, geared specifically to the Western mind, to prepare oneself to to commune with the dying with great presence...to navigate the various levels of consciousness the dying travel on their way from this life into the next. Spiritual death midwives create a bridge and gently guide the dying from this life into the next with great consciousness, love, dignity and the opportunity of transformation.

    The book was just awarded the 2009 National Best Books Award for the death and dying category.

    You can read a free sample here bT*xJmx*PTEyNTgzMDUzNjA1OTMmcHQ9MTI1ODMwNTM3NDM5MCZwPTU*OTI4MiZkPSZnPTImbz1mNDg4OTAzNGI2OWI*N2VkOTY3ODE3ZmIyZjdmYjNkMCZvZj*w.gif
    The book can be purchased from Amazon

    The book was inspired from my many years in service to the dying and I hope it will be an aid to those who also choose this path of service.
  • Sam Oliver July 30, 2008 at 9:21pm
    "Follow Your Dreams, Your Soul Knows the Way." Sam Oliver
This reply was deleted.

Forum

A Companion in Words and Images

At the end of life, the capacity for absorbing educational or theoretical materials about dying may be diminished just when the need for beauty and meaning intensifies. It is also a time when crucial discussions about the dying process, life review, making preferences known and addressing emotional and spiritual issues are hugely important. Facing Death: A Companion in Words and Images was created precisely for such a time and to encourage such conversations. This slender volume features…

Read more…
Started by Linda Watson
3 Replies

"I Don't Know What To Say"

When people we love are dying, we all too often are unable to help them — or even talk to them — or face our own conflicting feelings about the impending loss. This authoritative and empathetic guide demystifies the dying process and offers practical advice for the friends and families of the terminally ill. In "I Don't Know What to Say..." Dr. Robert Buckman, a distinguished oncologist who was himself once diagnosed as having a fatal illness, confronts these questions: What should a patient…

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Started by Greg Schneider
1 Reply

Google Books for all the books you want to read

I have found many good excerpts (extending from a preview up to more than 50 pages+) of excellent books on hospice and palliative care.    My favorite book about hospice is by Dr. Ira Byock - "Dying Well - Peace and Possibilities at the End of Life".  It's getting pretty old now but the content is still fabulous.  I have not found it in googel books but there is a limited preview of The 4 Things that Matter Most at this link.

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Started by HVTO
0 Replies

The Big Lie

[My comments: Tolstoy's novella, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, provides insight into the life of a high court judge in 19th-century Russia who left serious reflection on his own life until hours before his death. The process of dying, which for him started after the realization that his illness was not going to improve -- no matter what his doctors told him, was physically and emotionally painful. His suffering was perpetuated up until the very moment of his death by what he referred to as The Big…

Read more…
Started by Greg Schneider
0 Replies

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CAREGIVERS STORE

Recently Published!!
by Maryclaire Torinus

Surviving Hospice: A Chaplain's Journey into the Big Business of Dying Plus: How To Find a Trustworthy Hospice 

This narrative is an insider’s look into the hijacking of hospice by private equity and professional investors and the subsequent harm to patients, their families, and to the interdisciplinary clinical teams. It was released by a NYC publisher on October 31, 2023. For sale on Amazon.

The author, a hospice chaplain, tells end-of-life stories of her patients who were harmed by financially-motivated policies. This is a book for anyone who is embarking on making a choice about a hospice for their loved one, working chaplains, those in training, and those interested in what dying is like with a hospice who places patients as their primary stakeholders.

Maryclaire's experience working for an owner who sold to a private equity firm helped her to realize that the reputation and viability of hospice is in jeopardy. Her goal is to alert all who love hospice to rid it of professional investors.

— Stacy Juba, author, editor, and award-winning health journalist

"Powerful, beautifully written, and eye-opening, this book spotlights the inner workings of a multi-billion-dollar industry and the effect on patients, families, and hospice staff. The author shares poignant accounts of hospice at its best and worst and the hard-hitting truths she learned on her journey. A must-read for family members exploring hospice care."

— Laura Kukowski, CEO, editor, For-Profit Badger Hospice, LLC

"Maryclaire Torinus speaks with authority, providing this essential handbook for choosing a hospice care team and why that selection really matters."

— Greg Schneider President, HVA, co-author of The Changing Face of Hospice Volunteering in Hospice and Palliative Care 

"When I first found out that Maryclaire Torinus was writing this book, I immediately contacted her because in my 25+ years supporting hospice volunteers, I have seen a gradual decline in the quality of care volunteers are permitted to provide the dying and their families. There are a variety of reasons for this that I describe in the Foreward of this book. Maryclaire provides invaluable insights that everyone should know, along with solutions to help others make the right choice in choosing a hospice."

Buy Now