Brad Stuart, MD, practiced general internal medicine, treating patients in his office, the emergency room, the hospital, and the ICU. The latter half of his career was devoted to care of the dying. He first served as a hospice medical director in 1993 and later became Chief Medical Director for hospice services at the largest not-for-profit healthcare system in Northern California.

In the mid-1990s, he headed a team that worked with the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization to develop national guidelines for hospice eligibility in non-cancer disease. In the early 2000s, he was the architect of the Advanced Illness Management (AIM) program, which won a $13 million grant from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation and became a foundational element of new payment models developed by Medicare for the care of seriously ill patients and their families at home.

Dr. Stuart has written over fifty peer-reviewed papers and book chapters. He has given hundreds of talks internationally on clinical, emotional, and spiritual issues faced by people who are seriously ill and their loved ones. He has three children and five grandchildren scattered across Oregon, Washington, DC, and Germany. He lives in western Sonoma County, California, among the redwoods with his wife Barbara, their dog Violet, and a pond full of happy koi fish.