Barbara Karnes, RN, is an award winning hospice nurse and nationally prominent speaker on the dynamics of dying.  In 1986 she published, Gone From My Sight: The Dying Experience (often called, "The Hospice Blue Book"), which has been for the caregiver, professional and lay, the primary source material on the signs of approaching death from disease.  Her work has been instrumental in creating one of the most important tools in the Hospice movement today: the patient/family educational booklet.  Her other booklets are, A Time To Live: Living with a Life-Threatening Illness, The Eleventh Hour: A Caring Guideline for the Hours to Minutes Before Death and My Friend, I Care; The Grief Experience. Her book, The Final Act of Living: Reflections of a Longtime Hospice Nurse, is a comprehensive end of life resource that offers knowledge to ease fear and misinformation about dying and death.  It is used by hospices as a volunteer training manual, in universities, by Stephen Ministries and churches.  It is written not as a textbook but as an easy, informative book for anyone wanting guidance on end of life issues. 

Barbara's 30-year career as an end of life educator is predicated on her experience at the bedside of hundreds of people in the months, weeks, and minutes before death as well as being involved in the care of thousands of terminally ill people.  Today she fulfills her passion for end of life education through writing and speaking to the community.  Previously she worked as executive director of hospice and home health agencies as well as having worked through the hospice ranks as patient care manager, clinical director, staff nurse and volunteer.  From 1989 until 1994 Barbara served as Director of Hospice and Home Health at Olathe Medical Center, a suburb of Kansas City.  Before that she served as Executive Director of Hospice Care of Mid-American in Kansas City, Missouri.  Since 1994 she has been educating professionals and lay people through the presentation of workshops and lectures across the country.