Reviewed: The Conversation , by Angelo Volandes Reviewed by: Alex Smith Using video to help patients with serious illness make decisions about future care seems like a “no brainer.” Think back to your early training. Remember being at the code for that patient with advanced cancer, wondering why he wasn’t DNR? If he could only have “seen” what it was like to be coded, to be in the ICU, to live on machines. The allure of video is obvious. But as with any thing that seems too good to be true, the reality of using videos to jumpstart goals of care conversations is more laden with potential pitfalls than is apparent on the surface. Thankfully, we have Angelo Volandes. In his book The Conversation , Angelo uses stories of patients he has cared for to build the case for video. He does this slowly, deliberately. He exposes the limitations of language through his own stories of caring for patients, where he wishes the conversation had gone differently. He does this with humil