Hope for the Best, Plan for the Rest

7 Keys for Navigating a Life-Changing Diagnosis

By: Dr. Sammy Winemaker, Dr. Hsien Seow

Narrated by: Dr. Sammy Winemaker, Dr. Hsien Seow

The essential guide for every patient and family

The doctor’s office called. It’s not good news. What comes next? When you are diagnosed with a life-changing illness, it can be overwhelming. While your diagnosis cannot be changed, the way you experience your illness can.

In Hope for the Best, Plan for the Rest, Dr. Seow and Dr. Winemaker have combined their decades of palliative care research and experience in caring for seriously ill patients. They have harnessed the advice of thousands of patients to create a roadmap that every patient and family will benefit from. In it, they share the 7 keys to unlock a better illness experience and reveal stories, tips and exercises to improve your journey right from diagnosis. These two compassionate experts empower you with practical tools to take charge of your life-changing diagnosis and navigate the health care system with confidence, knowledge, and calm.

This book is about hope in the face of uncertainty. It’s about how to live well, be fully informed, and be activated. How to feel more like a person, not a patient. But most of all, how to be hopeful and prepared at every step along the way.

©2023 Dr. Sammy Winemaker (P)2023 Dr. Sammy Winemaker

Critic reviews

“This is a much-needed book. The authors offer an engaging, positive, and helpful set of principles to people who are sick, their close supporters, and those who want to help them navigate the challenge of serious illness—including dying—their way. This book is like a conversation with a wise coach on adapting the system so that health care is tailored to your individual preferences. Hope for the Best, Plan for the Rest is kind, clear, and system-changing: a clarion call for a patient-led revolution in health care.”—Kathryn Mannix, MD, palliative care physician and Sunday Times-bestselling author of With the End in Mind and Listen

“A lightning bolt of hope! This book shows patients and families struggling with serious illness how to get the honest, personalized care they need. Hope for the Best, Plan for the Rest is a palliative care tour de force and essential reading for all who feel overwhelmed and alone in the health care system, along with the clinicians who care for them.”—Theresa Brown, RN, New York Times-bestselling author of Healing and The Shift

“Drs. Sammy Winemaker and Hsien Seow are leading a revolution—one we all need to be a part of! Get planning! Their decades of research, as well as clinical and lived experience, are compiled here to provide readers with essential keys to navigating illness. Do yourself a favor: read this book and make sure your family and friends do too!”—Kathy Kortes-Miller, PhD, author of Talking about Death Won’t Kill You