Larry Beresford is a freelance medical writer and health care journalist specializing in hospice, palliative care, end-of-life care, grief and bereavement, opioid pain management and related fields. He writes cover feature stories for the Quarterly Newsletter of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine and contributes regularly to The Hospitalist Magazine, EMS World Magazine and Medscape.
He authored the definitive consumer’s guidebook to hospice care (The Hospice Handbook: A Complete Guide, published by Little, Brown & Co.), as well as contributing articles on hospice and palliative care to a variety of health care trade magazines and developing and writing newsletters, columns, manuals and white papers intended for managers and clinicians.
He is the former editor of Hospice Compliance Letter, published by Weatherbee Resources, and of the Hospice House Network; co-author (with Dr. Diane Meier) of the “Notes from the Field” column that ran in the Journal of Palliative Medicine; and author of articles about the place for healing gardens and horticultural therapy in health care settings.
From 2016 to 2018, he contributed 17 blog posts on end-of-life issues to The Lancet’s United States of Health U.S. blog page.
His articles have been published in the Washington Post, American Medical News, Medscape, Hospitals & Health Networks, Health Plan, Managed Care, Medical Economics, Hospice Journal, Hospice Magazine, Anesthesiology News, AARP Bulletin, KEVINMD and Healthcare Design Magazine.
His experience also includes participating in two ethics projects on end-of-life care at the Hastings Center, Garrison, N.Y., and serving as a hospice patient care volunteer in varied settings for nearly two decades. He also writes, publishes and performs original poetry. He lives with his wife Rose Mark, also a writer, in a cohousing community called Phoenix Commons in Oakland, Calif.