EOLCNY Summer Book and Film Series

End of Life Choices New York is launching a Summer Book and Film series. The selected books and films will highlight a variety of death and dying experiences to help us to reflect on our own wishes and stimulate conversation. Each month we will spotlight different works, followed a special Q&A discussion with the author/director on Zoom.  We invite you to join us!

Living While Dying (film) by Cathy Zheutlin

July 27th at 3pm Register here ($15)

Join us for a Q&A webinar discussion with the filmmaker Cathy Zheutlin about her film “Living While Dying” on Zoom. In this documentary, filmmaker Cathy Zheutlin chronicles the experiences of several people living with terminal illness who greet the inevitable with courage, humor, creativity and acceptance. Her curiosity about death leads her to seek the advice of an aboriginal elder and a deathwalker in Australia, witness a mass cremation in Bali, and ask her 90-year old mother to sit in a coffin while discussing end-of-life wishes. “Living While Dying” invites us to re-imagine our own inevitable ending in new ways. This film sheds light on supportive practices, beliefs, hopes and environments that can help foster a sense of peace and fulfillment, and offers many opportunities for robust discussion about navigating the end of one’s life. Click here to watch the film trailer. 

EOLCNY is asking for a $15 donation to cover the cost of the online film rental and attend the Zoom Q&A. If you need financial assistance, please email info@endoflifechoicesny.org and we can cover the cost of your screening.  Once you register, you will receive a link and passcode to watch the film. Please watch in advance of the discussion. 

Cruel Death, Heartless Aftermath: My Family’s End-of-Life Nightmare and How to Avoid It by Barbara Mancini 

August 24th at 4pm Register here ($10) 

Join us for a Q&A webinar discussion with Barbara Mancini on her book Cruel Death, Heartless Aftermath.  She will discuss the bizarre and outrageous treatment authorities inflicted on her, including details that never appeared in news reports at the time. This book is an account of Barbara Mancini’s harrowing experience with her father’s death. Ninety-three-year-old Joseph Yourshaw knew his end was near and had carefully planned so that he would have a peaceful and dignified death. He completed an advance directive, appointed his daughter, Barbara, as his health care proxy, and enrolled in home hospice care. He made it clear — he wanted to die at home, in comfort and with dignity, not at a hospital. But it was not to be. A simple act of compassion on Barbara’s part led her father to a medically intensive, horribly painful death in the hospital – and left her an accused felon, facing 10 years in prison. Falsely charged with trying to assist her father in a supposed suicide attempt, she fought back, in a case that consumed a year of her life, cost more than $100,000, and drew national media attention. She was featured in 60 minutes, click here to watch the story. 

EOLCNY is asking for a $10 donation to attend the event.  This book is available on Kindle devices and paperback through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and your local libraries. 

The Art of Dying Well: A Practical Guide to a Good End of Life by Katy Butler 

September 24th at 7pm Register here ($10) 

Join us for a Q&A webinar discussion with Katy Butler on her book The Art of Dying Well. This book is about living as well as possible for as long as possible and adapting successfully to change. Packed with extraordinarily helpful insights and inspiring true stories, award-winning journalist and prominent end-of-life speaker Katy Butler shows how to thrive in later life (even when coping with a chronic medical condition), how to get the best from our health system, and how to make your own “good death” more likely. This handbook of step by step preparations-practical, communal, physical, and sometimes spiritual-will help you make the most of your remaining time, be it decades, years, or months. She explains how to successfully age in place, why to pick a younger doctor and how to have an honest conversation with her, when not to call 911, and how to make your death a sacred rite of passage rather than a medical event. This down-to-earth manual for living, aging, and dying with meaning and even joy is based on Butler’s own experience caring for aging parents, as well as hundreds of interviews with people who have successfully navigated a fragmented health system and helped their loved ones have good deaths. It also draws on interviews with nationally recognized experts in family medicine, palliative care, geriatrics, oncology, hospice, and other medical specialties.  

EOLCNY is asking for a $10 donation to attend the event.  

Katy has signed 30 copies of her book, which are available for $25.00 each. A signed copy can be purchased when registering for the event while available. Unsigned copies of her book are available on Kindle/Audible/paperback through Amazon, Audible,  Barnes and Noble, and through your local library. 

Palliative Care and Covid-19 Webinar 

August 12th at 4pm, Register Here (free) 

Palliative care is still a relatively new field in medicine, but it has proven to be a very important one that provides care to patients to reduce suffering and improve their quality of life. Unfortunately, surveys show that about 70% of the public does not know about palliative care. However, when informed about it, over 90% said they would likely consider it for a loved one or themselves when having a serious illness. Many health professionals too still do not fully appreciate the value of palliative care, when it should be provided, how to identify patients who might benefit from it, barriers to its provision, and how it differs from hospice. These topics will be discussed as will the use of telemedicine for the delivery of palliative care in the hospital setting.  

The webinar will be presented by Dana Lustbader, MD. Dr. Lustbader is chair of the Department of Palliative Care at ProHEALTH, a large multispecialty ACO serving over 1.2 million patients in the New York metropolitan area. She is the founder of Optum Supportive Care, an advanced illness program providing care to people with serious illness utilizing in-home visits and telemedicine. She partners with health plans through innovative payment models to increase access to palliative care services for people facing serious illness.  

If you are a NYS licensed social worker (LMSWs and LCSWs), you may register for 1.0 live contact hours for a small fee of $15.00.  Participants will be able to: describe a use case for telemedicine in the delivery of palliative care in the hospital setting; discuss a strategy to identify patients who could benefit from palliative care services; and identify three barriers to providing palliative care to those who need it. End of Life Choices New York, Inc. is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW-0464.

We hope you will join us and share with your friends and family.