Resources - Books

  • Hope for the Best, Plan for the Rest: 7 Keys for Navigating a Life-Changing Diagnosis

    In Hope for the Best, Plan for the Rest, Dr. Seow and Dr. Winemaker have combined their decades of palliative care research and experience in caring for seriously ill patients. They have harnessed the advice of thousands of patients to create a roadmap that every patient and family will benefit from. In it, they share the 7 keys to unlock a better illness experience and reveal stories, tips and exercises to improve your journey right from diagnosis. These two compassionate experts empower you with practical tools to take charge of your life-changing diagnosis and navigate the health care system with confidence, knowledge, and calm.

  • The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully

    Life and death are a package deal. They cannot be pulled apart and we cannot truly live unless we are aware of death. The Five Invitations is an exhilarating meditation on the meaning of life and how maintaining an ever-present consciousness of death can bring us closer to our truest selves. As a renowned teacher of compassionate caregiving and the cofounder of the Zen Hospice Project, Frank Ostaseski has sat on the precipice of death with more than a thousand people. In The Five Invitations, he distills the lessons gleaned over the course of his career, offering an evocative and stirring guide that points to a radical path to transformation.

  • With The End In Mind: Dying, Death, And Wisdom In An Age Of Denial

    Weaving the details of her own experiences as a caregiver through stories of her patients, their families, and their distinctive lives, Dr. Mannix reacquaints us with the universal, but deeply personal, process of dying. With insightful meditations on life, death, and the space between them, With the End in Mind describes the possibility of meeting death gently, with forethought and preparation, and shows the unexpected beauty, dignity, and profound humanity of life coming to an end.

Resources - Advance Care Planning

The FIVE Steps of Advance Care Planning by Advance Care Planning (ACP) Ontario.

Comprehensive information about how and why to have ACP conversations to help people and their substitute-decision-maker (SDM) prepare for future healthcare decisions.

planning AHEAD - Advance directives, Handling financial changes, Estate planning, and Arriving at Decisions for the end of this life by University of Wisconsin–Madison Division of Extension.

A helpful workbook including End-Of-Life Planning Checklist, Resources for Support, Starting the Conversation, Checklist Following the Death of a Loved One, Contacts List, Security Codes and Digital Accounts, and Important Document Locations. Content is American so does not all apply to Canadian provincial laws but provides a framework for being prepared for the end-of-life.

Person-Centred Decision-Making: Documenting Goals of Care Discussions by Drs. Kaya, Steinberg, Incardona, Myers, Ailon, Chakraborty, Grossman, Perri, Wentlandt, You & Ms. Andreychuk.

A form outlining how to have Goals of Care (GOC) discussions with patients, which occur in the context of a serious illness and there are treatment or care decisions that need to be made. The aim is to align available treatment and care options with the patient’s goals and values.