As a retired family nurse practitioner, I spent my forty-four year career navigating a health care system that often times felt insensitive to the needs of patients and their families. I have also been on the other side as a cancer patient and have experienced the difference between compassionate and insensitive care so I read Stay, Breathe with Me with great interest.

I also speak as a nurse with experience in hospice and as a family member who witnessed first-hand the compassion and love provided to my beloved Aunt Rose. She died on 4/12/12 so she was foremost in my mind as I read this book. It is a source of great consolation to me that the palliative care team made such a positive difference in helping her and the family transition to her death then to celebrate her life.

This mother–daughter team show the essence of palliative care through the patients they present. The writing flows seamlessly as the reader meets several different patients in varying stages of their illnesses. It focuses on the holistic approach to compassionate care. The reader sees the difference compassionate care makes in alleviating the suffering of these terminal patients and their families. These tender stories are a labor of love and are interwoven with technology and research about attitudes toward illness and treatment modalities.

The authors deliver on their promise of “a passionate plea to revive the art of caring through unconditional, nonjudgmental medicine, delivered with heart and compassion.”

I highly recommend this important, beautifully written book as a guide to anyone in the health care field. In my opinion, it should be required reading for those attending nursing school, medical school or any other health care-related profession.

This guidebook for alleviating suffering through compassionate care is a labor of love ( )