Talking about death can be difficult. But Lois Perelson-Gross believes people are eager to find a way in and begin to feel comfortable talking about the inevitable, so she helped launch Reimagine End of Life, a not-for-profit whose mission is to publicly explore death and celebrate life through creativity and conversation. On the show, Lois tells us about Reimagine and how she went from being a Vice President at Goldman Sachs to launching her second career as a palliative care chaplain focused on humanism in medicine.
Talking about death can be difficult. But Lois Perelson-Gross believes people are eager to find a way in and begin to feel comfortable talking about the inevitable, so she helped launch Reimagine End of Life, a not-for-profit whose mission is to publicly explore death and celebrate life through creativity and conversation. Reimagine recently held its first ever festival in New York City, where some big questions about life and death were explored in over 300 unique events. On the show, Lois tells us how she went from being a Vice President at Goldman Sachs to launching her second career as a palliative care chaplain focused on humanism in medicine. She talks about how Reimagine evolved and about the Graphic Medicine-related events at the NYC festival, which included exhibits and panel discussions with cartoonists Emily Flake, Ben Schwartz, Roz Chast and others who address mortality in their often funny and poignant comics. Lois tells us about her own project, “Never the Right Time,” which debuted at the festival and combines the work of New Yorker magazine cartoonists with factual information about end of life care and end of life wishes. She also offers tools you can use to get past the stigma of talking about death and dying, and start having meaningful conversations.
Explore Reimagine End of Life: www.letsreimagine.org
Also mentioned in the show: Death Over Dinner: https://deathoverdinner.org
Go Wish (card game): http://www.gowish.org
Hello (card game): https://commonpractice.com/products/hello-game
“Being Mortal” by Atul Guwande: http://atulgawande.com/book/being-mortal/