In Facing Death, Brad Stuart invites us to embrace the life force that underlies the deepest kinds of healing, whether in medicine or in our personal lives. Bringing together solid science, Eastern wisdom, and learnings from a lifetime of rich clinical practice, he invites us to embrace the awareness of our true nature. You can access this through meditation and altered states of consciousness today—or if you prefer to wait, it may surprise you at life's end. Clinicians may learn to blend curing and healing so they flow together, 'like two streams making a great river.' Anyone who reads this book will be prepared for transformative experiences in life's final moments—or in your life right now. You will not stop turning the pages of this brilliant book, and you will be glad you didn't.
-- Dale G. Larson, PhD, McCarthy Professor, Counseling Psychology, Santa Clara University, author of The Helper's Journey: Empathy, Compassion, and the Challenge of Caring (2020 Research Press)
A decade ago, when I profiled Brad Stuart for a national magazine, I saw that he was one of America's most compassionate and creative doctors. Instead of treating diseases, he focused on healing humans. He knew medical science forward and backward, but he also understood that healing has a spiritual side. And for all his idealism about rethinking American health care, he was also a savvy operator who knew how to bring innovation to stubborn bureaucracies. In Facing Death, you’ll meet this unusual physician. Written in an easygoing, accessible style (which sounds exactly like Dr. Stuart does in person), his book distills a lifetime of on-the-job learning about illness, wellness, life and death. In his very first encounter with a patient's death, Dr. Stuart confronts the hardest decision in medicine--and realizes that the patient's best interest hadn't come first. That moment inflects his whole career, as he vows never again to let the system think for him. From then on, he never stops questioning, challenging, and innovating. If every doctor read this book, American health care would look very different.
-- Jonathan Rauch, author of The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After 50 and The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth
The author has not just glimpsed, but experienced something that's very difficult to describe—yet he does a great job at describing it. He combines eastern and western mysticism and spirituality into a unified vision that our culture can really begin to grasp. In addition, he walks us to the edge of known science, then shines a bright light into the great mystery beyond. Blending nearly fifty years of medical practice with a deep dive into the healing value of meditation and psychedelics, this book presents a new paradigm for spiritual awakening.
-- David S. White, Hospital Chaplain, author of We Need to Talk: Conversations to Ease Fear and Suffering Surrounding End of Life
In this book, Dr. Stuart reveals his own experiences with his greatest teachers—not professors of science or medicine, but his own patients. He weaves stories of his own involvement with LSD together with research on the benefits of psychedelics in serious illness, and his accounts of care of the dying with his own struggles with a cancer diagnosis. Brad has already made a profound impact on our field by developing new models of care for people with serious illness. But his spiritual insights may be even more important. He implores us to let go of what we as a society and as individuals tend to prioritize above all else—our self—throughout life, and most critically, at life's end.
-- Alex Smith, MD, MS, MPH, Professor of Medicine, University of California San Francisco and Co-host of the GeriPal podcast
Thank you for this book and for guiding all your readers in understanding our oneness and our access to it. The writing is beautiful, intimate, clear, and even humorous. I felt like I was meditating the whole time I was reading.
-- Katharine Blank, RN, Labor and Delivery Nurse
-- Dale G. Larson, PhD, McCarthy Professor, Counseling Psychology, Santa Clara University, author of The Helper's Journey: Empathy, Compassion, and the Challenge of Caring (2020 Research Press)
A decade ago, when I profiled Brad Stuart for a national magazine, I saw that he was one of America's most compassionate and creative doctors. Instead of treating diseases, he focused on healing humans. He knew medical science forward and backward, but he also understood that healing has a spiritual side. And for all his idealism about rethinking American health care, he was also a savvy operator who knew how to bring innovation to stubborn bureaucracies. In Facing Death, you’ll meet this unusual physician. Written in an easygoing, accessible style (which sounds exactly like Dr. Stuart does in person), his book distills a lifetime of on-the-job learning about illness, wellness, life and death. In his very first encounter with a patient's death, Dr. Stuart confronts the hardest decision in medicine--and realizes that the patient's best interest hadn't come first. That moment inflects his whole career, as he vows never again to let the system think for him. From then on, he never stops questioning, challenging, and innovating. If every doctor read this book, American health care would look very different.
-- Jonathan Rauch, author of The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After 50 and The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth
The author has not just glimpsed, but experienced something that's very difficult to describe—yet he does a great job at describing it. He combines eastern and western mysticism and spirituality into a unified vision that our culture can really begin to grasp. In addition, he walks us to the edge of known science, then shines a bright light into the great mystery beyond. Blending nearly fifty years of medical practice with a deep dive into the healing value of meditation and psychedelics, this book presents a new paradigm for spiritual awakening.
-- David S. White, Hospital Chaplain, author of We Need to Talk: Conversations to Ease Fear and Suffering Surrounding End of Life
In this book, Dr. Stuart reveals his own experiences with his greatest teachers—not professors of science or medicine, but his own patients. He weaves stories of his own involvement with LSD together with research on the benefits of psychedelics in serious illness, and his accounts of care of the dying with his own struggles with a cancer diagnosis. Brad has already made a profound impact on our field by developing new models of care for people with serious illness. But his spiritual insights may be even more important. He implores us to let go of what we as a society and as individuals tend to prioritize above all else—our self—throughout life, and most critically, at life's end.
-- Alex Smith, MD, MS, MPH, Professor of Medicine, University of California San Francisco and Co-host of the GeriPal podcast
Thank you for this book and for guiding all your readers in understanding our oneness and our access to it. The writing is beautiful, intimate, clear, and even humorous. I felt like I was meditating the whole time I was reading.
-- Katharine Blank, RN, Labor and Delivery Nurse