Finish strong: putting your priorities first at life's end

Foreword by Haider Warraich, M. D.

Preface by Barbara Coombs Lee

1. An invitation

Box: What is "Medical Aid in Dying"?

2. Talking about death won't kill you (but it could improve your life)

Box: Talking about your priorities early and often

Box: Finding a "Partner Doctor"

Box: Advance Directive Components

Box: The limits of an Advance Directive

3. Overtreatment and diminishing returns

Box: Having a say in your treatment plan

Box: Tips for combating overtreatment

4. Let me die like a doctor

Box: 5 Things doctors know about end of life

5. Hope and heroism

Box: What we hope for can change as terminal illness progresses

6. Hospice: The healing option

Box: Choosing a good hospice program

Box: When a loved one enters hospice at home

7. The secret of slow medicine

Box: Vital questions to ask before consenting to a test

Box: Vital questions to ask before consenting to a treatment

8. Escaping dementia

Box: Creating a video supplement to your advance directive

9. Inside a growing advocacy

Box: How to become a storyteller

Box: Your first steps to advocacy

10. People taking control

Box: Medical interventions you can decline or stop to die peacefully with medical support

11. Space for the sacred

Box: Elements of a ritual of celebration of a life about to end

12. It's harder than you think (but we can do it)

Appendix: Tools to take charge

Acknowledgments

Notes on sources

About the author

About compassion & choices.