Facing Death with Dignity and a Plan

How can our medical and social systems support or hinder dying? Do we have the right to bend the arc of our own death, or that of a loved one? How can we approach the final passage with grace? Dan Diaz is the husband of Brittany Maynard, who died in November 2014 from a brain tumor. He is carrying on with Brittany’s mission through Compassion & Choices, a nonprofit organization that advocates for expanding end-of-life options for terminally ill adults. BJ Miller is executive director of the Zen Hospice Project and an assistant clinical professor of medicine at University of California San Francisco, where he attends to the Palliative Care Service at UCSF Medical Center and the Symptom Management Service of the Helen Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center. Samuel Kargbo is director of policy and planning at the Ministry of Health and Sanitation in Sierra Leone. He is focused on Ebola research for vaccines and post-Ebola recovery. Courtney E. Martin is an author, entrepreneur, and weekly columnist for On Being. She is co-founder of the Solutions Journalism Network and of FRESH Speakers Bureau, a strategist for the TED Prize, and editor emeritus at Feministing.com