avg_rating: 4.38
name: Barbara Coombs Lee
about: About the new second editionFinish 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 About the new second editionFinish 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.I dearly hope the stories, commentary and tips in Finish Strong will have a positive influence on your life and your healthcare choices. ...more