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Your Good Death
Why End-of-Life Healthcare Is So Difficult and How to Make it Work for You
Published by Regalo Press
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
Table of Contents
About The Book
Speaking to readers who are struggling to navigate end-of-life healthcare, Your Good Death presents both personal stories and research-based strategies capable of shaping key questions that could revolutionize the course of their care—even while healthy.
While most Americans say they prefer to die at home, only about a third will experience that outcome. One in four people find themselves caregiving, and the pressures are only increasing as our population ages and healthcare costs rise. Based on a decade of research, Karen Lutfey Spencer shows how our medical and cultural systems have hidden defaults that can conspire to prevent patients and families from having the kind of care they prefer. Readers will learn about different types of end-of-life care, especially palliative care and hospice, which are too often subject to damaging myths. They will learn how their own knowledge can operate alongside of—not subjugated to—medical expertise. They will gain information about caregiving that can help them lay groundwork in advance of an emergency. Dr. Spencer identifies inflection points where readers can pause and ask themselves key questions, which she helps them articulate. When readers understand the challenges that come with navigating end-of-life healthcare, they and their families will be better able to manage the process.
While most Americans say they prefer to die at home, only about a third will experience that outcome. One in four people find themselves caregiving, and the pressures are only increasing as our population ages and healthcare costs rise. Based on a decade of research, Karen Lutfey Spencer shows how our medical and cultural systems have hidden defaults that can conspire to prevent patients and families from having the kind of care they prefer. Readers will learn about different types of end-of-life care, especially palliative care and hospice, which are too often subject to damaging myths. They will learn how their own knowledge can operate alongside of—not subjugated to—medical expertise. They will gain information about caregiving that can help them lay groundwork in advance of an emergency. Dr. Spencer identifies inflection points where readers can pause and ask themselves key questions, which she helps them articulate. When readers understand the challenges that come with navigating end-of-life healthcare, they and their families will be better able to manage the process.
Product Details
- Publisher: Regalo Press (September 1, 2026)
- Length: 272 pages
- ISBN13: 9798895652794
Raves and Reviews
“Healthcare generally means well, but it doesn’t always do well. This is especially true and consequential towards the end of life. Too often what is a sacred experience gets reduced to a medical flowchart, so insidiously and counterintuitively so that we patients are left questioning ourselves and our own sense of reality, adding a sense of tragedy to an already fraught mix. Enter Karen’s book, a perfect blend of her decades of scholarship and the power of story. Your Good Death will help you make sense of your experience as well as help you advocate for anyone you love, someday including yourself. It’s just what this doctor would order.”
– BJ Miller, MD, author of A Beginner’s Guide to the End
“Karen Lutfey Spencer combines expertise in health policy with a true love of storytelling to help readers visualize a path towards the healthcare they want and deserve.”
– Jessica Zitter, MD, MPH, filmmaker and author of Extreme Measures: Finding a Better Path to the End of Life
“Your Good Death is a wise and compassionate guide for navigating end-of-life care, helping readers face difficult decisions with intention. It will make you pause and think about your own personal story, what matters for you, and what you need to think about as you move through the increasingly complex world of modern medical care in the United States.”
– Diane Button, author of What Matters Most: Lessons the Dying Teach Us About Living
“This book is for all of us who will die one day. In a health care system with a strong drive towards treatment and cure, Dr. Spencer explains through heartfelt stories how it is up to us to navigate around the insurance obstacles and professional gaps to achieve the death we desire. She nudges us to make requests about palliative and hospice care, ask the hard questions about quality of life, and close our final chapter with grace. Our doctors will not help us if we don’t ask for help first, but a good death, whatever it may be, is in reach for everyone.”
– Stefan Timmermans, PhD, co-author of The Unclaimed: Abandonment and Hope in the City of Angels
“If you have aging parents, but palliative care, hospice, and caregiving are still hypothetical concepts, it’s time to lock in and read this book. Everyone’s end of life experience will be better for it.”
– Caitlin Doughty, author of Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Other Lessons from the Crematory
“Spencer’s end-of-life research, interviews, and options are a must planning-read for anyone of a ‘certain age.’”
– Phil Caragol, author of the Baby Boom memoir, The Blunder Years
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