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Finish Strong: Putting YOUR Priorities First at Life’s End Paperback – December 14, 2018

by Barbara Coombs Lee (Author), Haider Warraich M.D. (Foreword)

4.6 241 ratings

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From the President Emerita/Senior of Compassion & Choices, THE guide to achieving the positive end-of-life experience you want and deserve.It’s hard to talk about death in America. But even though the topic has been taboo, life’s end is an eventual reality. So why not shape it to our values? FINISH STRONG is for those of us who want an end-of-life experience to match the life we’ve enjoyed. We know we should prepare, but are unsure how to think and talk about it, how to live true to our values and priorities, and how to make our wishes stick.The usual advice about advance directives and conversations is important but woefully inadequate. This book describes concrete action in the here and now to help live our best lives to the end. FINISH STRONG will guide you through:• Finding a partner-doctor to honor your values and beliefs with humanity, deference and candor.• Identifying what matters most as vigor wanes and stating your priorities.• Having meaningful conversations with doctors and family about expectations and wishes.• Staying off the “overtreatment conveyor belt.”• Knowing when “slow medicine” is the best option to maintain quality of life.• Navigating home hospice, the ultimate healing experience. Written with candor and clarity by a nurse, physician assistant and attorney who became a leading advocate for end-of-life options, this book can help you FINISH STRONG.CHAPTERS:An InvitationTalking About Death Won't Kill You (But It Could Improve Your Life)Overtreatment and Diminishing ReturnsLet Me Die Like a DoctorHope & HeroismHospice: The Healing OptionThe Secret of Slow MedicineEscaping DementiaInside a Growing AdvocacyPeople Taking ControlSpace for the SacredIt's Harder Than You Think (But You Can Do It)Appendix: Tools to Take Charge

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Editorial Reviews

From the Author

Over more than five decades, Barbara Coombs Lee worked in healthcare as a clinician, policy-maker and advocate. Her indelible bedside experiences forged a deep respect for individual values and beliefs and eventually led her to a career in law and health policy. For the last 25 years, she has advocated for initiatives that allow individuals a full range of options and much greater agency in their healthcare decisions.

Barbara's work in public policy culminated in her roles as CEO and now President of Compassion & Choices, the nation's oldest and largest organization working to empower everyone to chart their end-of-life journey. Thousands of personal experiences and the teachings of scholars and thought leaders around the globe inform her perspective. She is a seasoned writer, speaker and commentator.

Barbara's passion for transforming the end-of-life experience by informing and empowering patients infuses her new book FINISH STRONG. She calls for all Americans to join a patient-driven movement to dismantle the institutional and cultural barriers to living well to the very end.

She lives in Oregon.

About the Author

Over more than five decades, Barbara Coombs Lee worked in healthcare as a clinician, policymaker and advocate. Her indelible bedside experiences forged a deep respect for individual values and beliefs and eventually led her to a career in law and health policy. For the last 25 years, she has advocated for initiatives that allow individuals a full range of options and much greater agency in their healthcare decisions.

Barbara's work in public policy culminated in her roles as CEO and now President of Compassion & Choices, the nation's oldest and largest organization working to empower everyone to chart their end-of-life journey. Thousands of personal experiences and the teachings of scholars and thought leaders around the globe inform her perspective. She is a seasoned writer, speaker and commentator.

Barbara's passion for transforming the end-of-life experience by informing and empowering patients infuses her new book FINISH STRONG. She calls for all Americans to join a patient-driven movement to dismantle the institutional and cultural barriers to living well to the very end.

She lives in Oregon.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Compassion & Choices (December 14, 2018)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 294 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1732774404
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1732774407
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.74 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #899,519 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #621 in Sociology of Death (Books)
- #2,716 in Aging (Books)
- #90,443 in Self-Help (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.6 241 ratings

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A Note to Readers

Finish Strong is for you, the healthcare consumer. It covers the tough issues around aging and dying other books shy away from.

This book was a long time in the making—a lifetime actually. It offers some of the fruits of my labors in medicine and healthcare advocacy. If you count the years I volunteered as a candy striper under the stern tutelage of the nursing nuns at St. Joseph Hospital in Joliet, Illinois, I’ve worked in healthcare almost fifty-five years. Dozens of clinical settings and assignments, countless patient encounters, years of advocacy in courtrooms and statehouses, decades of observation and experience—those are the seeds of the fruits borne by these pages.

In 2022, in creating the second edition of Finish Strong (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1732774463), I added a new chapter, “Race and Culture Matter.” It discusses the cultural differences, racial biases and institutional barriers that impact what the medical system offers people of diverse backgrounds, and the choices they make. My hope is that being aware of the cultural traditions and racial biases impacting healthcare can help people make choices that transcend those and reflect true, individual priorities at life’s end.

Finishing strong will be different for different people. Some will examine their options carefully and decide to dedicate their final months to experimental and taxing treatment. Others may decide to spend precious energy focusing on passing life lessons and values on to their heirs. But for those who choose to “Finish Strong,” the common thread will be a certain strength in knowing that treatment decisions were well-considered, and they honored the values and beliefs that gave meaning to the life that is ending.

Finish Strong reflects my passionate conviction that individuals can be empowered to chart a course for themselves and loved ones that reduces suffering and reflects their personal values and beliefs.

I dearly hope the stories, commentary and tips in Finish Strong will have a positive influence on your life and your healthcare choices.

* * *

Author Bio

Barbara Coombs Lee worked in healthcare as a clinician, policymaker and advocate for more than five decades. Her indelible bedside experiences forged a deep respect for individual values and beliefs and eventually led her to a career in law and health policy. For the past 25 years she has advocated for initiatives that allow individuals a full range of options and much greater agency in their healthcare decisions.

Barbara’s work in public policy culminated in her roles as chief executive officer and president of Compassion & Choices, the nation’s oldest and largest organization working to empower everyone to chart their end-of-life journey. After serving in that capacity for 22 years, Barbara transitioned her role to President Emerita/Senior Adviser.

Thousands of personal experiences and the teachings of scholars and thought leaders around the globe inform her perspective. Often quoted in the media, Barbara is a seasoned writer, speaker and commentator. Her previous book was Compassion in Dying: Stories of Dignity and Choice.

Barbara’s passion for transforming the end-of-life experience by informing and empowering patients infuses FINISH STRONG. She calls for all Americans to join a patient-driven movement to dismantle the institutional and cultural barriers to living well to the very end.

She lives in Oregon.

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Terry Lynne Hale

Finish Strong – A Masterpiece Abundant with Research, Compassion, and Love for Humanity

Reviewed in the United States on March 15, 2020

Verified Purchase

Finish Strong, Putting YOUR Priorities First at Life’s End, is a journey of the painstaking persistence, dedication, and love of Author, Barbara Coombs Lee and the team of leaders and volunteers of CompassionandChoices.org. Through heart-warming and heart-breaking stories of those who helped further the mission of CHOICES at the end of life, we learn that this is no longer a world where Doctor Knows Best.
The author’s extensive experience in the medical field (nurse, PA, clinician, heart specialist) and study of the law and all-around advocate for Medical Aid in Dying, Death with Dignity, Compassion and Dying and Compassion and Choices, led to a book of invaluable insight, incredible warmth, and a depth of understanding about life and death far greater than most of us. This book is a must-have for everyone because everyone must become an advocate for his or her own life.
With sincere appreciation, Lee explains that the medical field is doing what it was taught to do: maintain lives-period. Doctors weren’t taught to discern between living and the quality of one’s life and that isn’t theirs to do anyway. Doctors aren’t to blame for the technological advances in medicine that make their valiant efforts (at least for those who are advocating for themselves or their loved ones and are determined to die a comfortable death) more like torture.
Our fee-for-service medical model encourages physicians to perform procedure after procedure, order tests and more tests, and perform invasive surgeries – regardless of their likelihood to restore health and well-being. Doctors are human and no compassionate individual wants to deliver the hard truths. We have to let our doctors and nurses and everyone close to us know our opinions on this very personal subject of end of life choices. WE have to tell our medical providers what we want, whether that is sugar-coated, or cut-to-the-chase, give me the bottom line, Doc.
Some people want their physicians to pull out all the stops, to try anything and everything to keep them alive. That is their right and is exactly as it should be.
Others want to define what their quality of life looks like; they want to determine if a marginal existence is acceptable or if they want to live their remaining days, months or years with all the gusto they’ve got until that final breath. And this is as it should be.
This book is a MASTERPIECE of understanding humanity’s strengths and weaknesses. When we are faced with a terminal illness, we should be able to choose the kind of death we want after living the kind of life we chose to live. End of life choices are just that. There is no pushing to bend people to the will of others. Choices are an individual and personal experience. They should have always been and should be realized now.

7 people found this helpful

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Kathy S.

persuasive, clear

Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2023

Verified Purchase

Not depressing to read. Instead, it's comforting and empowering. Went to their website immediately after reading the book and got their toolkit, which is also excellent. So made a generous donation to them.

3 people found this helpful

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David S. Pratt, MD

A Light for Our Darkest Hours

Reviewed in the United States on March 27, 2019

Verified Purchase

When it comes to consideration of our mortality Americans are a hot mess. We are fearful and frightened. We persist in stubborn denial of the only reality in our existence that is certain – our deaths.

Such considerations are so abhorrent we procrastinate, postpone, and pretend that the discussions are too early and have no downstream consequences. Folly follows folly.

And the medical profession provides little meaningful help. Even as “….scientific advances have turned aging and dying into medical experiences managed by health professionals they find themselves alarmingly unprepared” according to Atul Gawande, surgeon and health writer.

We all need to work through these issues or alternatively offer ourselves up to the health care system in perilous naiveté.

So who you gonna call? I suggest Barbara Coombs Lee with her helpful guide entitled “Finish Strong”. Barbara is a clinician, lawyer and activist in matters dealing with the end of life. Her book reminds me very much of Our Bodies Ourselves published in 1969 to educate women about their bodies and sexuality. Our Body Ourselves was ground breaking and helpful to thousands of women, young and older. Barbara’s book has the very same potential.

Ms Lee offer a series of “playbooks” to facilitate our considerations through the tough choices we all must face. Each chapter has summary boxes to help the reader retain salient points.

Though some may have begun to consider the fundamental elements needed to assure a good death (living will, health care proxy, durable power of attorney, having that very important talk with loved ones about what you want when the end approaches), fewer readers will have thought about real self-determination in the face of failing health. Seldom has a book provided this level of candor and guidance for ending one’s life when suffering or the loss of dignity become unbearable.

Brace yourself. Barbara pulls no punches. Chapter 8 will help you understand how you might escape dementia – one of American’s greatest fears. While Chapter 10 provides a blue print for how we all might take control of our final days and assure a good death. The author is a long -time advocate for having the medical profession be able to prescribe a lethal dose of powerful medication so dying individuals can end their lives at the time they wish, in the setting they choose. The poignant patient vignettes make her case.

This is a gutsy, heroic book written by a professional who has seen it all.
Every American should own this book, read it and underline it. There is a 100% chance it will come in handy.

10 people found this helpful

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kuwaya

As little suffering as possible.

Reviewed in the United States on February 28, 2021

Verified Purchase

Planning my passing, unfortunately society,
prefers the more death defying method, rather than retirement with dignity.

One person found this helpful

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gillosu

A must read for everyone who is thinking about how to die

Reviewed in the United States on March 4, 2019

Verified Purchase

"Finish Strong" is a beautifully written book about the difficulty of changing people's minds when a different way of doing things is proposed. The "different way" is taking control ourselves of how we die, and not succumbing to the enticements of medical miracles that may only prolong suffering. I wish in a way that the author had written two books, one on how to get state legislatures to enact Death with Dignity laws, and the other as a guide to how we ourselves can take charge. The book can be read both ways.

I've personally had the experience of being with a loved one who chose his time to die. He was fortunate to live in Vermont where medical assistance in dying is legal. It was a sacred and uplifting experience, gentle and quick; and just what he wanted. I have many, many books on the subject. If I had to keep only two, it would be this, and Atul Gawande's "Being Mortal."

6 people found this helpful

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