About Us Good Enders

GoodEnding is a tax-exempt, nonprofit organization whose mission is to improve end-of-life for individuals, family members, and society as a whole.

GoodEnding was inspired by personal experience. My mother suffered repeated medical interventions, hospital, and nursing home stays in her last year of life. She was among the wisest people that I have known and earned a PhD in psychology. However, my mother had no Advance Directive and did not experience a good ending. As my mother’s health deteriorated, no one engaged her in that difficult discussion about end-of-life scenarios and choices. Instead, we relied on guidance from medical professionals who focused on prolonging my mother's life.

In August of 2010, The New Yorker published "Letting Go” by Dr. Atul Gawande (the basis for Dr. Gawande’s subsequent bestseller, Being Mortal). Reading “Letting Go” finally led us to switch my mother to hospice care. She died peacefully only two days later. I can’t help but regret the months of suffering and family angst that preceded those final days.

In Letting Go and Being Mortal, Dr. Gawande tells the story of a retired professor of psychology who expresses his desire to stay alive so long as he is “…able to eat chocolate ice cream and watch football on TV.” This proved to be a perfect Advance Directive and the professor ultimately had a good ending. We hope GoodEnding will assist individuals in formulating and conveying their personal “chocolate ice cream and football” choices, thereby promoting a better end of life.

After a career in investment banking, insurance and at a hedge fund, in 2015, I had the good fortune to be appointed as a Harvard Advanced Leadership Fellow. Harvard’s Advanced Leadership Initiative prepares experienced leaders to take on new challenges in the social sector where they potentially can make an even greater societal impact than they did in their careers. GoodEnding is a product of my Harvard Fellowship and I thank Harvard, the ALI leadership, faculty, students and other Fellows for their inspiration and support.

I would also like to thank Regional Hospice where I trained and now provide patient and family support in their Center for Comfort Care and Healing. Just as all politics is local, each death is personal. Working directly with patients and families humbles me while complementing my GoodEnding efforts.

We welcome all comments and suggestions so please do not hesitate to reach out to us using the Contact page. 

Thank you for visiting GoodEnding,

Doug Renfield-Miller