The Hospice Movement: A Better Way of Caring for the Dying (1978)—A bold departure, Stoddard’s first non-fiction work The Hospice Movement grew from her efforts to support a dying neighbor into an essential how-to book that helped to popularize hospice care in the United States. Her research was both academic and experiential; in the course of her extensive inquiry into the history and philosophy of hospice care, the author worked as a volunteer with Dr. Cicely Saunders in her London hospice. In the end, this landmark book changed the lives of millions of American families, announcing the possibility of an alternative to Western medicine’s assumption that death represented failure. The book and its author subsequently received national recognition from the New York Times and the Washington Post, as well as a lifetime achievement award from the National Hospice Association.