That Good Night: Life and Medicine in the Eleventh Hour

I appreciated the author's honesty in writing about death and life. For people afraid to think or talk about dying this book could help. There is balance of personal stories, patient experiences, and philosophical/spiritual musings that make the reading easy.

My mom died and i bought this book

This book contains a number of stories about how we can live our best life at the end of life even when we have serious health issues that require ongoing medical treatment. Dr. Sunita Puri is a gifted writer as well as a gifted physician who meets with patients and their families and helps patients themselves ultimately choose how they want to live each day until they take their last breath. It's inspiring, educational and liberating. While the book is instructive, it's also a heartwarming memoir of how Dr. Puri's parents inspired her to become a physician and how she gained the courage to take her own path in palliative care a medical specialty that's relatively new. Not only does palliative care provide the patient with more comfort and a sense of self-care and confidence, it also reduces the cost of end-of-life medical care, which adds to our mounting national debt.

Good insight into palliative care by a clearly caring doctor. As one might expect, recounts of dilemmas and decisions faced by dying individuals and/or their families, and the doctors involved, have much the same sadness to them. The reinforcement of the necessity for discussion of, and planning for, the uncertainties of the end of life certainty was the most significant take away for me.

As a parent who had to make end of life decisions for my 15 year old son who was born with a rare congenital muscular dystrophy, so much of what Dr. Puri shares resonated with me. Even though she writes about end of life decisions for adults, the stories and take-aways apply equally to decisions parents have to make for their children with chronic, life-limiting conditions. This book helped ease some of the guilt and burden that I still carry in connection with end of life decisions we had to make for our son. One of my favorite quotes in the book is from the Sanskrit Scripture - Bhagavad Gita: "The soul wears the body like a cloth and discards it at the time of death." This gives me great comfort. I highly recommend this book for parents of children with life limiting conditions who have to make decisions regarding palliative care and hospice for their child. It's beautifully written and provides so much insight and comfort for all of us who are dealing with end of life - whether as someone who has to make the decisions or someone who has to guide others in the decision-making. Ann S.

I rarely sit down and read a book nonstop, especially a non-fiction book. This book, however, gripped me from the start and I couldn’t put it down. Dr Puri is a gifted writer as well as a compassionate, gifted physician. She carefully walks her reader through the emotional roller coaster that discussing palliative care is for patients, their families, and their physicians, as well as the palliative care team. This is an area of medicine that is still in its infancy yet is critical to good end-of-life care. Learning how to handle these discussions with respect, compassion, and dignity is crucial for all involved. This is a beautifully written book and I highly recommend it.

I have parents who are 90+. And friends in their 70s. The Man of My Dreams dropped dead at 68.This book will tell you things you need to know to be prepared to live here - and die here. Because nobody gets out alive. But that doesn't mean you should have to suffer needlessly.Best wishes on your journey and your exit.

This is a lovely — and loving — book about a difficult subject — death. It is about last illnesses, terminal conditions, and the considerations of patients (or very often, the family of those patients when the patient is unable or unfit to make decisions for themselves because he or she is in a coma, or has dementia, etc.). I read this book shortly after a family member died in hospice, and it helped me feel better about my sister’s death. I’d made out a living will some years ago, and always planned to talk with my appointed health POAs about my wishes if, in the future, I am faced with health circumstances that I am unable to speak for myself about. After reading this book, I asked my husband and son to read it too, because I strongly agreed with the author’s desire to assist families in that situation to consider the patient’s end of life “goals” and make decisions for their family member that he or she would make if able to. This book, with its specific examples of patients and their families that the doctor has known and treated, lays the perfect foundation for the important conversations I need to have with my family while I still can. Knowing that they are carrying out my wishes will help relieve them of some of the sad burden of having to decide and speak for me if we are ever in that situation.

The book is worth reading but extremely poorly edited.

I was introduced to Dr. Puri through a documentary series that The Guardian did on how different people face the idea of death. Dr. Puri's segment was focused on palliative care in a hospital space (whereas other parts of the documentary talked about people avoiding death, people planning death, etc.) Right away I was drawn to Dr. Puri's empathy and the compassion in her voice with patients nearing the end of life.That Good Life weaves memories of Dr. Puri's journey through medical school in addition to her upbringing in a particularly spiritual family. She talks a lot in particular about the relationship with her mother (also a doctor) and her father, and how those relationships shaped her into the kind of doctor that she is today. It's beautifully written.You don't necessarily need to be involved in medicine to enjoy this book - though I have to say that my favourite parts of the book were the various social conundrums that Dr. Puri would have to face speaking with the (often difficult) families of terminal patients. I'd recommend this book to anyone who is interested in how palliative medicine works - or just a very high level look at how humans react when their own (or somebody they love) life is coming to an end.

Death and or imminent death I can acknowledge is not easy to discuss.for the patient, families and doctors. The patient’s and families walking this very dark journey are relying on doctors and others to light up their pathway. However, death will come no matter how dark or bright the journey. As different as we are in life so we are when it comes to our understanding of death, so a big thanks for this book as it helped to see and understand both sides of very complex stories

The book is a beautiful memoir of the authors journey through training in Medicine and Palliative care. I'm a Neonatologist myself and I was enthralled by her descriptions of the outsides and Insides of a doctor's life. I love how she has recounted the fact of her Indian heritage and how it interweaves into her spirituality as she literally dances with Death everyday. Having been in palliative care situations at work and in my own life ( my father died of Glioblastoma ,fortunately in his own bed ) I found her description of the challenges and gifts of her specialty both poignant and fresh.Gorgeous book. I would recommend it first to physicians who ,as she points out ,are reluctant to see Death as anything but an enemy . And then to anybody who is ever going to die. Just like all boooks that are memorable ,it puts Death and dying in context. And of course ,it's only when one is living as if one is going to die,is one living at all !

A powerful true story from the viewpoint of a Palliative Care physician brining to light how we cope differently with bad news and end-of life-issues.