Welcome to Nobody Told Me. I'm Jan Black. And I'm Laura Owens. Death is not an easy subject to talk about, but it's a fact of life. We will all die someday,

and between now and then, we'll have family and friends who will die. So how can we help those

close to us who are facing death, and how can we best prepare for our own lives to end?

We'll explore those questions on this episode with Dr. B.J. Miller and Shoshana Berger,

who are the co-authors of the book, A Beginner's Guide to the End, Practical Advice for Living

Life and Facing Death. It's described as the first ever practical, compassionate, and

comprehensive guide to dying and living fully until you do. Dr. Miller is an assistant clinical

professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco, where he practices and teaches

palliative medicine. He has his own serious brush with death to talk about as well because of an

accident that occurred when he was in college. It resulted in the amputation of one arm below the elbow and both legs below the knees.

Shoshana is the global editorial director at IDEO, where she has worked on end-of-life projects

and was a caregiver during her father's five-year decline with an incurable illness.

B.J. and Shashana, thank you so much for joining us today.

Thank you for having us.

Tell us a little bit about your backgrounds and why you guys decided to write this book together.

Shoshan and I met a couple different angles working on this subject one way or another at IDO.

And we had a bunch of experiences together there,

and we got to know each other a little bit and got to explore the subject pretty open-endedly.

And when Shoshana brought up the idea of writing a book together, it was a pretty quick, easy yes,

because I knew the world needed a book like this and it felt right to work with

Shoshana on it both because just the way we are together but also the idea that one of us

as a clinician the other is not and it seemed important to have a foot in health care and one big

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