Articles on Death & Dying 

• What Does it Mean to Die? – The New Yorker, Rachel Aviv (an article on the case of Jahi McMath)

• The Body Trade: Cashing in on the Donated Dead (series of 7 articles on for-profit whole body donation) – Reuters 

• Story of a Face: Building Katie’s New Face (interactive timeline of facial transplant surgeries) – National Geographic 

• When Does Life Stop? A New Way of Harvesting Organs Divides Doctors – NY Times, Joseph Goldstein

• Doctors Were Preparing to Remove Their Organs. Then They Woke Up. – NY Times, Brian M. Rosenthal 

• The Organ is Still Working. But it’s not in a Body Anymore. – NY Times, Ted Alcorn

• They’re Putting Some Fun in Funeral Homes – NY Times, Anabel Nugent

• ‘Death Doulas’ Provide Aid at the End of Life – NY Times, Abby Ellin

• ‘If You See a Fox and I’ve Died, It Will Be Me’ – NY Times Opinion, Sarah Wildman

• 3 Lessons for Living Well, From the Dying – NY Times, Jancee Dunn

• The New Old Age – a now-discontinued NY Times column on caregiving & aging

  • Weighing the Chances at Life’s End – NY Times, Paula Span

  • A Final Prescription – NY Times, Paula Span (explains P.O.L.S.T. forms)

  • Among Doctors, Fierce Reluctance to Let Go – NY Times, Paula Span

  • Plain Speaking at the End of Life – NY Times, Paula Span

Choosing a Health Care Proxy 

• When There’s No Family – NY Times, Paula Span

• Values Conflict at the End of Life – NY Times, Paula Span

• Care by Consensus – NY Times, Paula Span

Academic Articles

• Surrogate Decision Makers' Interpretation of Prognostic Information (Annals of Internal Medicine, Volume 156, Number 5; 6 March 2012) – Lucas S Zier, Peter D Sottile, Seo Yeon Hong, Lisa A Weissfield, Douglas B White

• On the Definition and Criterion of Death (Annals of Internal Medicine, Volume 94, Number 3; 1 March 1981) – James L. Bernat, M.D., Charles M. Culver, M.D., Ph.D., And Bernard Gert, Ph.D.

• Anesthetic Considerations of Organ Procurement After Brain and Cardiac Death: A Narrative Review – (Cureus; 19 June 2023) – Michael B Brown, Apolonia E Abramowicz, Peter J Panzica, Garret Weber 

• Never say die?—as treatments fail doctors’ words must not– (International Journal of Clinical Practice; February 2011) – S.R. Workman

• Living Every Minute (Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, Volume 49, Issue 4; 4 April 2025) – Stuart Farber, MD

Books on Death & Dying

• Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

• Final Rights: Reclaiming the American Way of Death by Joshua Slocum & Lisa Carlson

• How We Live is How We Die by Pema Chodrön

• The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyam Rinpoche

• The In-Between by Hadley Vlahos

• On Death & Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy & Their Own Families by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, M.D. 

• Final Gifts: Understanding the Special Awareness, Needs, and Communications of the Dying by Maggie Callanan and Patricia Kelley

• When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi 

• The Five Invitations by Frank Ostaseski

• End of Life Booklets by Barbara Karnes

Films & Videos on Death & Dying 

Documentaries / TED Talks

• What Happens When We Die – TEDx Talk by Kathryn Mannix

• Why Thinking About Death Helps You Live a Better Life – TED by Alua Arthur

• This Doctor Wants to Humanize Death – NYTimes Op-Doc

• Facing Death – Frontline

• Being Mortal – Frontline

• The Last Ecstatic Days – Ethan's story (not currently available for streaming)

• A Lesson in Dying: A Nurse With Cancer Offers Herself as Instruction in Caring – The NY Times

• Death Land Series - The Guardian (7 short videos on different aspects of death)

  • Who wants to live forever? | Death Land #1

  • Before I die: a day with terminally ill patients | Death Land #2

  • Hello, I have death anxiety | Death Land #3

  • Death cafes and planning your own death | Death Land #4

  • How a near-death experience changed my life | Death Land #5

  • Can a death meditation cure my anxiety? | Death Land #6

  • Dying young: 'It's not what you think' | Death Land #7

  • All things must die. Including this series. Response video! | Death Land #8

• Why Thinking About Death Helps You Live a Better Life – TED Talk by Alua Arthur

• The Undertaking (full documentary) - Frontline

• Dying Young on TikTok | My Life Online – VICE

Non-documentaries / Dramas

• Blackbird – Lily and Paul summon their loved ones to their beach house for one final gathering before Lily decides to end her long battle with ALS through medical aid in dying. 

Youtube Channels

• Caitlin Doughty - Caitlin is a professional mortician who makes educational/humorous videos on death and dead bodies. Some recommended videos of hers:

  • What Happens to a Body During Embalming

  • What Happens to a Body During Cremation

  • Let’s Visit the Human Composting Facility

  • DONATE YOUR SKIN: Face Transplants, Foreskin Creams, Leather Bags

  • Ask A Mortician- Are Dead Bodies Dangerous?

  • Corpse Control (Know Your Rights)

  • DEATHBED PLANNING with a Death Doula

• Hospice Nurse Julie – Julie is a licensed hospice nurse teaching about death, dying and hospice. Some recommended videos of hers:

  • What surprises me about the end of life and why it matters

  • This is what actively dying looks like hospice care

  • How does someone die from Dementia 

Organ Donation

• Why More Than 100,000 Americans Are Waiting For Organs - CSNBC (explains the American organ donation/transplant process)

• My Life After Death: Inside Organ Donation (Australia) - Real Stories

• The Story of a Face: Inside the groundbreaking face transplant that has given a young woman a second chance at life – National Geographic

• Face Transplant Patient Reveals his Incredible Transformation – Eyewitness News ABC7NY 

• World's First Double Arm Transplant: 'It's Science Fiction' – 7NEWS Australia

• Journey of the Heart | 19-Year-Old Organ Donor Saves Life | UW Health Transplant Program – UW Health

• Robert Truog - Another Inconvenient Truth: Are Organ Donors Really Dead? - MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics

• ‘Brain-dead’ patient woke up in the OR. But a witness says an organ procurement group kept ‘pushing’ - CNN

• Rep. Griffith Grills Expert On Allegations Of Organ Donors ‘Waking Up On Their Way To The Operation Room’ - Forbes Breaking News, September 2024

Honor Walk Videos 

• Hospital Holds Honor Walk for Organ Donor who Saved 5 Lives

• UMC Staff Honor Organ Donor Michael Sigler

Whole Body For-Profit Donation

• Body Brokers – CBS Reports

Black Market Organ Industry

• Black Market Organs (Full Episode) – Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller (National Geographic)

Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD)

• How to Die in Oregon – rent/purchase

• Right to Die – VICE 

• Do You Want To Die Today? Inside Canada’s Euthanasia Program | Fault Lines Documentary – Al Jazeera English

• Allow me to Die: Euthanasia in Belgium - SBS Dateline

Voluntary Stopping of Eating and Drinking (VSED)

• Dying Wish – more information about the film here

• Rosemary Bowen’s Fast

• Everything you Wanted to Know about VSED but were Afraid to Ask – Compassion & Choices

Podcasts & Audio on Death & Dying 

Podcasts

• Dance Past Sunset Podcast episode: “Home Sweet Death at Home” with Death Midwife Reverend Olivia Bareham, On How to Conduct a Respectful, Safe and Beautiful Home Death and Funeral (June 2016)

• On Being with Krista Tippett: Atul Gawande – On Mortality and Meaning (October 2017)

Audio

• NYTimes Opinion - Sarah Wildman: When We Face the End of Life, “It’s Not Sadness We Should Fear. It’s Regret.”

Websites on Death, Dying & End of Life

Advance Planning

• Caring Info Advance Directive Forms by state

• Everplan Advance Directive Forms by state

• Cake – End-of-Life Planning

• Lantern – End-of-Life Planning

• POLST.org – information about POLST/MOLST forms 

Organ Donation

• Organ Donor Glossary

• Understanding Organ Donor Process

• Gift of Life Donor Program  – Eastern PA, Southern NJ & Delaware

• The Center for Organ Recovery & Education (CORE) – Western PA & West VA

• Story of a Face: Building Katie’s New Face (interactive timeline of surgeries) – National Geographic 

Whole Body Donation

• Human Gifts Registry – non-profit, Pennsylvania Commonwealth-run. Your entire body is donated, intact, for research at Drexel, Lake Erie, Penn State, Philadelphia College, Temple, Thomas Jefferson, Geisinger, University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Pittsburgh.

Funeral Advocacy Groups

• Funeral Consumers Alliance

  • Financial Assistance for Funeral Costs

• Funeral Consumers Alliance of Pennsylvania

Home Funerals

• National Home Funeral Alliance

• The Case For Home Funerals – Sacred Crossings Institute

Medical Aid in Dying Advocacy Groups

• Compassion & Choices – also have End-of-Life planning resources

• Death with Dignity

How to Find a Death Doula

• NEDA (National End-of-Life Doula Alliance) Directory

• Philly Death Doula Collective

• Threshold Collective (based out of the MAAS building in Fishtown)

• Philadelphia Community Deathcare