This remarkable work reveals and follows the intimate stories of several families facing terminal illness with and without palliative care. Examining their experiences of diagnosis and care from the prism of palliative care communication, Elaine M. Wittenberg-Lyles, Joy Goldsmith, Sandra L. Ragan, and Sandra Sanchez-Reilly use narrative description to identify the experiences of isolated, rescued, and comforted illness in an effort to reveal the deficits in our current communication and literacy practices between patient, family and clinician. The volume explores the dilemmas of poor clinical communication, denial of death, clinician training deficiencies, and health illiteracy, as well as the promise of narrative medicine, early palliative care, and a new clinical training paradigm named the COMFORT initiative that will better ensure the inclusion of palliative care in communication among clinicians, patients and families.

With an author team comprised of three health communication scholars and one physician certified in geriatrics and palliative medicine, this volume integrates the medical literature on palliative care with that of family and health communication researchers who advocate a simultaneous care model; one that includes curative as well as comfort care upon the diagnosis of serious, chronic or terminal illness. Their engaging writing style and extensive use of narratives make this book accessible to a wide variety of readers: clinicians, researchers in the field of health and communication, families and patients, interdisciplinary team members, and policy-makers. It is particularly suitable for various physician and nurse training to illustrate communication difficulties and successes in the most challenging context of communication for practitioners; end of life.