End Well is a nonprofit dedicated to the belief that all people should experience the end of life in a way that matches their values and goals.
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FOUNDER
Advocate, Caregiving Strategist
Shoshana Ungerleider, MD
Shoshana Ungerleider is a practicing internal medicine physician and the founder of End Well. She began this work after seeing, again and again, how often the end of life unfolds in ways that do not reflect what people want, need, or deserve. At the bedside, she came to understand that the gap was not only medical. It was human. Cultural. Personal. Something that touched families, clinicians, caregivers, communities, and all of us. In 2017, she founded End Well to help change that. Her work brings together medicine, storytelling, media, policy, and public conversation to help more people live and die in ways that feel aligned with their values. She believes that when we can speak more honestly about illness, caregiving, grief, and mortality, we do more than prepare for the end. We become more awake to the lives we are living now.
Through End Well, Shoshana has helped grow a national conversation about what it means to live well all the way through the end. She has produced films, podcasts, talks, and public programs that invite people into this conversation with more honesty, courage, and care. She created and hosts the Before We Go podcast, and produces and hosts TED Health. Her documentary work includes Netflix Oscar-nominated films Extremis and End Game as well as Robin's Wish. She appears as a medical expert on CNN, MSNBC, and CBS News, and her writing has been published in TIME, Newsweek, Scientific American, USA Today and others. She has spoken at SXSW, TED, the Aspen Ideas Festival, Google, and the Milken Institute. Across all of her work, Shoshana returns to the same simple belief: mortality is not something we should have to face alone. And when we make room to talk about it, we make more room for dignity, love, meaning, and life. As Founder and Medical Director, Shoshana guides End Well's clinical framing, editorial voice, speaker curation, and public storytelling, keeping the work rooted in both medical expertise and lived human experience.
PODCAST
01
Before We Go
When Shoshana's father was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer, she found herself living the questions she had spent her career helping others face. Before We Go is the story of that journey — a deeply personal podcast about family, illness, inherited risk, and what it means to accompany someone you love to the end of their life.
Told with the honesty and clinical insight that define all of Shoshana's work, Before We Go invites listeners into one of the most universal experiences there is: saying goodbye.
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
02
A trusted voice in the national health conversation
Shoshana writes and speaks widely about medicine, mortality, and what it means to care for one another — translating clinical expertise into plain, human language. Her commentary and reporting appear across national television, print, and digital media. Explore her work in three areas below.
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
End of Life
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Shoshana emerged as a leading public voice for clear, compassionate science communication. That work continues today as a medical contributor on CNN, MSNBC, and CBS News, and through her writing in TIME, Newsweek, Scientific American, USA Today, STAT, Vox, and others.
- Elevate Podcast: Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider, Founder, End Well Project Hospice News Apr 2026
- Why Nicole Kidman Is Training to Become a Death Doula Healthline Apr 2026
- What The Pitt Gets Right About Preparing for Death Katie Couric Media Mar 2026
- How "The Pitt" Gets Death Right The Hollywood Reporter Sep 2025
- What "The Pitt" Can Teach Us About Hospital Deaths Medscape Jul 2025
- Ricki Lake Says She Tried Ayahuasca People Nov 2024
- End-of-life clinicians are trying to shift Hollywood's depiction of death NPR Dec 2023
- The people turning to psychedelics on their deathbeds The Independent Nov 2021
- Changemakers: End Well Founder Shoshana Ungerleider, M.D. Hospice News Jun 2020
- Virtual grieving: Is there closure if there is no funeral? (op-ed) San Francisco Chronicle Apr 2020
- Grief in the Time of COVID-19 (op-ed) Scientific American May 2020
- It's Time to Get Serious About End-of-Life Care for High-Risk Coronavirus Patients (op-ed) TIME Mar 2020
- Building a Better Death, One Conversation at a Time JAMA Jul 2019
- How This Doctor Is Bringing Human Connection Back to End-of-Life Care Forbes Aug 2018
- Shoshana Ungerleider, palliative care Oscar nominee San Francisco Business Times May 2018
- "Death is hot right now": An advocate for palliative care scored big with "Extremis" STAT Jan 2017
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
Public Health & Science Journalism
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Shoshana emerged as a leading public voice for clear, compassionate science communication. That work continues today as a medical contributor on CNN, MSNBC, and CBS News, and through her writing in TIME, Newsweek, Scientific American, USA Today, STAT, Vox, and others.
- The quest for long life: a distraction we can't afford (op-ed) Modern Healthcare Apr 2022
- Nurses get spit on, kicked, assaulted. Stop hurting us. (op-ed) USA Today Jan 2022
- Are You Unvaccinated? It's Time to Make an End-of-Life Plan (op-ed) Newsweek Aug 2021
- "The unvaccinated are at very, very high risk" (video) MSNBC Jul 2021
- "Vaccinated people can essentially return to life as usual" (video) MSNBC May 2021
- Nearly half of US states reporting a rise in new coronavirus cases (live coverage) CNN Jun 2020
- Second wave of coronavirus is "very likely," doctor warns CBS News May 2020
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
Genetic Testing
When her father's cancer was linked to a BRCA2 mutation, Shoshana got tested, learned she carried the same mutation, and made a series of decisions rooted in knowledge and prevention. Today she is a national advocate for genetic testing and hereditary cancer awareness, and serves on the board of jscreen.
FILM & TV
03
Stories that change how we see the end of life
Shoshana believes film is one of the most powerful ways to open a public conversation about mortality. As an executive producer and funder, she has helped bring some of the most acclaimed end-of-life documentaries of the past decade to global audiences — intimate, unflinching films that let viewers sit with dying, and with the people who care for the dying, in ways few of us ever get to.
Academy Award–nominated · Emmy-nominated · Netflix
Extremis (2016)
Inside the ICU at a public hospital in Oakland, families and physicians face wrenching decisions about life support. Directed by Dan Krauss.
Academy Award–nominated · Netflix
End Game (2018)
Visionary medical practitioners in San Francisco work at the edge of life and death, changing the way we think about both. Directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman. Executive produced by Shoshana Ungerleider.
Feature Documentary · 2020
Robin's Wish (2020)
A biographical documentary about the final years of Robin Williams and his undiagnosed battle with Lewy body dementia. Executive produced by Shoshana Ungerleider.