A book by Chaplain Derrick Hall
From Diagnosisto Goodbye.
Restoring the Patient’s Voice Through Every Stage of the Journey
A serious illness asks hard questions of a family. Too often, the quietest voice in the room belongs to the person the decisions are about. This book exists to give that voice back — at diagnosis, through every stage of care, and at the end.
For patients, families, caregivers, hospices, and the teams who serve them.
Why this book exists
“You were a person before you were a patient. You are still one now.”
Decisions get made quickly in a health crisis. Appointments multiply, the vocabulary turns clinical, and families try to protect the person they love by speaking for them. Somewhere in all of it, the patient can stop being asked what they want.
Chaplain Derrick Hall wrote From Diagnosis to Goodbye out of bedside conversations — the ones that happen when the machines quiet down and the person finally gets to speak.
The book’s hope is simple: that no one should spend the hardest season of their life feeling like a subject being discussed instead of a person being heard.
See the person
The first work of care
Hear the voice
The patient leads
Honor the journey
At every stage
The books & workbooks
One book, and the companions beside it.
“Being heard is not a small thing. For many people, it is the thing.”
Speaking & signings
Bring the conversation to your community.
Workshops for care teams, evenings with the book, interviews and signings — shaped around the people in the room.
Hospices
Hospitals & palliative teams
Caregiver groups
Senior living communities
Faith communities
Organizations & conferences
Ask Chaplain Derrick
Questions deserve honest answers.
A growing collection of episodes about serious illness, caregiving, hospice, and grief — the questions people ask at bedsides, in support groups, and in the quiet afterward.
