Join us for an evening with Michael Connelly, CEO Emeritus of Mercy Health  as he discusses his book The Journey’s End: An Investigation of Death and Dying in Modern America. 

About The Journey's End: Developing death literacy and understanding the US healthcare system are skills essential to helping us experience the death we want and not the one too many of us get.

We’ve lost our “death literacy” -- the skills, traditions and values that our predecessors used to deal with death. Today dying is no longer a familial experience but rather a cold, clinical, and medical ordeal.

Because we don’t candidly discuss end-of-life care, many times, our loved ones and caregivers really don’t know what we truly desire. Worried about making the “wrong” choice, our families can encourage modern medicine to overreach in its attempts to fend off death.

These matters are complex and personal. Every American deserves to die with dignity and without risking bankruptcy or burdening future generations. So how do we make progress in addressing these issues?

In the book, and his talk, Connelly will address how we can: understand—and face—our fear of death; prepare for death as seriously as we prepare for a newborn; acknowledge that at some point we are old enough to die, which changes the focus away from prevention, intervention, and sophisticated treatments toward one of support and comfort; and become educated on using the healthcare system so we can interpret what it presents to us and make informed choices. 

Michael D. Connelly served as the CEO of Mercy Health, one of the nation's largest health systems, from 1994 to 2017. Currently, he is the CEO Emeritus of Mercy Health (now Bon Secours Mercy Health System). He has global experience with health systems in Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden and Spain. He has also visited health facilities and orphanages around the world, including in Port a Prince, Haiti; Mathare Slums in Nairobi, Kenya; Kingston, Jamaica; Georgetown, Guyana, and Panguma, Sierra Leone. He has extensive governance experience and has chaired the following boards: Catholic Charities USA, the Urban League of SWO, the National Catholic Health Association, Catholic Medical Mission Board (CMMB) in NYC, and Premier, Inc. He also chaired the United Way for Greater Cincinnati (the 6th largest in the US) in 2013. He has published 17 articles in various healthcare journals, and currently lives on Johns Island, South Carolina.