cover of episode 'The Interview': The Doctor Who Helped Me Understand My Mom’s Choice to Die

'The Interview': The Doctor Who Helped Me Understand My Mom’s Choice to Die

2024/11/16
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Key Insights

Why did Dr. Ellen Wiebe choose to become a MAID provider?

Human rights have been a major focus of her life, and her practice includes abortion, which also deals with bodily autonomy. She feels honored to help people regain control over their lives in difficult situations.

How does Dr. Wiebe handle the emotional toll of her work?

She sets boundaries to protect herself from secondary trauma and finds meaning in her work. She balances her work with personal life to maintain her mental health.

What are some common concerns about MAID, and does Dr. Wiebe find them valid?

Concerns include the slippery slope effect, religious objections, and potential for coercion. Dr. Wiebe acknowledges these concerns and emphasizes the importance of thorough assessments to ensure patients are making informed decisions.

How does Dr. Wiebe determine if a patient is eligible for MAID?

She assesses whether the patient has a grievous and irremediable medical condition, understands their prognosis, and is making a rational decision. She also considers the patient's capacity to make decisions and the nature of their suffering.

What role do doctors play in the MAID process in Canada?

Doctors are trusted gatekeepers who assess patients for eligibility, ensuring they meet the criteria for MAID. This role is based on the trust society places in doctors to act in the best interest of patients.

How does Dr. Wiebe differentiate between rational decision-making and disordered thinking in MAID patients?

She looks for signs of disordered thinking, such as self-blame or a negative view of the world, which may indicate clinical depression. Rational decisions are based on a clear understanding of one's situation and the consequences of their choices.

What impact does MAID have on the grieving process?

MAID can make the grieving process more manageable by allowing families to say their goodbyes and understand the patient's decision. However, it can also lead to feelings of abandonment if the patient chooses to die earlier than necessary.

How does Dr. Wiebe address concerns about coercion in MAID?

She ensures that patients are not making decisions based on external pressures, such as financial reasons or family burdens. She assesses the patient's situation comprehensively to determine the true nature of their suffering.

What challenges does Dr. Wiebe face from opponents of MAID and abortion?

Anti-abortion opponents have been more violent, with incidents of shooting and stabbing. Anti-MAID protesters are generally less violent, often resorting to prayer. Both groups use similar rhetoric to demonize her work.

How has Dr. Wiebe's experience with death influenced her view on life?

Her patients teach her about the importance of living a meaningful and enjoyable life. She values spending time with loved ones and finds fulfillment in her work, emphasizing the importance of making life worthwhile.

Chapters

Dr. Ellen Wiebe discusses her motivation for becoming a MAID provider, drawing parallels to her work in abortion rights, and her approach to handling the emotional aspects of her work.
  • Dr. Wiebe's work is driven by a focus on human rights and bodily autonomy.
  • She feels honored to help patients through difficult decisions and restore their autonomy.
  • Dr. Wiebe balances her work by also being an abortion provider, seeing both as fundamental rights.

Shownotes Transcript

After the movie free Willy became a hit, word got out that the star of the film, a killer well in cao was sick and still living in a tiny pole in a mexican amusement park. Fans were outraged. Kids demanded his release in a lot.

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on apple podcast and spotify. From the neuro times, this is the interview. I am David markey. Alright, today's episode is a little different. It's kind of more about a topic than IT is a specific person.

That topic is the controversial subject of medical assistance in dying, also known by the economy made. That's the term for when patients legally receive help for medical practitioners with ending their lives here in the U. S.

Made is currently legal in ten states and the district of columbia. Patients have to be terminally ill in order to be eligible. In canada, where i'm from, the practice is legal nationwide.

And patients can apply forward in cases where they have a quote, grieves and immediate medical condition, which does not necessarily mean terminal. The epo de is a little different for this reason too, I have a very personal connection with the topic. Earlier this year, my mom died by mid.

I have to admit, I didn't really have any questions about IT beyond the basic house, that is, until a journalist friend of mine, some are provocatively and also a student, he sent me an article about a map provider in british columbia named Allen web. We have has performed hundreds of made procedures and is one of canada's most prominent advocates for the practice. As I look more inter doctor week to seventy two, I realized that actually I did have all sorts of on answer questions, medical, philosophical, about doctors helping people to die and about how made my shape our ideas vote. A good death even means. Here's my conversation with doctor elen wheep.

Doctor, we've thank you very much for taking the time to do this. I appreciate. I just want to tell you up front, my mom died from made in june in ontario, and that's part of why I am talking to you today now. And I am i'm glad that he had made and IT was the right decision for her um but I just wanted to tell you that so you yes no where i'm coming from and also um apologize in advance if I get emotional during this conversation. Probably not what i'm supposed to do you but there there's not going to be .

anyway around this that there is no easy way to say goodbye to your mother.

Um so I assume that plenty of doctors support made, but I don't know how many doctors would want to be made providers. What distinguish you from other doctors?

Well, human rights has been a major focus of my life, and my other practice is abortion. And again, IT has to do with basic human rights, people's rights over there own lives, their own bodies. And I am comfortable with that and i'm um you know I feel honor that people trust me to help them through these difficult things that they're going through and that I can hand them that autonomy that they lost.

Do you ever have doubt or or scepticism about your own work, either on the level of how the the .

system works or on a more .

personal level, feelings of regret or sad?

Well, I mean, there's the intense grief that we see sometimes, but a lot of the test that we are dealing with aren't like that. The grief, the tragedy was elsewhere at that moment. They are celebrating a life so last night I was with a family who was celebrating the life of the ninety two year old father who was living and there were tears, but there was laughter and there were pictures of when he was at eighteen year old, gorgeous Young man. Um you know that kind of thing that we've all gone through with saying goodbye or loved one where there's the good and the bad. And i'm so honor to be a part of these amazing experiences like my sites.

You know as you deeply aware, there are all sorts of different criticisms and skepticism around uh, medical assistance and dying. There's the slippery, slow argument, of course. You know you you allow people to do this then gonna want to die.

Everyone's gonna want to do .

IT or it's not so much that everyone's going to want to do IT. I think the concern is that more people will might feel compelled to do IT or or will do who otherwise .

we chose to die. So concern and ah I was was being football there, but basically people want to live unless their life is an invariable.

So that one concern another concern could be deemed religious to do with the sancy of life and and made the values that another uh concern would be uh that people might end up choosing IT for financial reasons or because they're pressured into IT. There's a long list of concerns. Do any of the arguments against made hold water for you? Do anything give .

you pause? So IT is our job as of clinton who assess people for made to determine some of these issues you've just brought up. So for example, I met a man in residential hospice, and he was like stage confined to bed and he said, uh, the reason I want me is because I don't want to be a burden to my family.

They, uh, keep coming into the host and they should be working and you don't mean I have to deal with that like you a story that's not a good enough reason you kiss. But in fact, of course, he also was very distressed at the fact that he had, he'd been a person who had taken care of his family, he had taken care of others and now he could lie in bed and have people take care of him. And he was unbearable to him, that he was in that state, and he wasn't getting Better. He was just going to more and more bit until he was dead. And so I had to determine that his suffering also included that, and not merely doing IT to protect his family from um having to come to the hospital to see him because they loved him so much and wanted to be there.

What determination did you make in that instance?

So he was most definitely eligible. His family gathered around him and he was a very removing, comfortable death for his family and his family.

I want to ask about where the line should be for eligibility in. I think it's twenty twenty seven um in canada, people for psychological reasons will be a able to access made. And I know IT in other countries has been brought discussion about made in instances of early dementia people saying I want to go before the disease gets too far or um I think it's the netherlands they've talked about made in instances of they call IT completed lives.

You know when when an elderly person just has reached a point where they say i've lived my life, I don't you know, it's not that they're ill or depressed or suffering. They just feel like their life is done. And those those are all pretty in a way different circumstances. And I just want to know where you think society we should say the line is for someone being able to access medical assistance and die.

I don't have the answer um I again, I come from human rights. People should have control over their own lives and they should be able to have help at the end if they so desire. But there's the situation of a quite a plagiary. Generally it's Young men who do risky things, who become quite 费用, and they are horrified at the idea that they onna live totally dependent for the rest of their lives and want to die early. And then years later, they maybe they've got university degree, a career, a family and they love life and feel that they would be terrible if they had had the choice to die early because they would have taken IT and that's a problem um how long should you force somebody to put up with quite pleasure before they can make the decision that that's not acceptable life to them and there isn't an answer because people should have the right to control their lives.

Have you ever helped someone with mate and then regret IT?

No, i'm I don't agree with all my patients choices. You know I mean, they're never um sometimes I struggle when I see a Young, beautiful person choosing to leave earlier than they needed to because it's hard, especially on their parents and i'm a parent of adult children. And so but I mean, I I I said I I believe so strongly in basic human rights, if that person says that they can live in with this condition, then I once we've gone through the whole process, I will hour their wishes.

Um so now I hard for me to get the word out。 Now I I want to ask some questions that directly come out of my moms experience. So just for more context you know SHE had L S. SHE was seven years old.

He was suffering uh, physically and mentally there's no doubt in my mind um that made was the right thing for her it's what he wanted my families all in agreement about that and yet IT IT raised questions for me um and so these parties for people who don't know the the process. So in ontario um one of the steps is that you have you have two independent assessments from a doctor or nurse practitioner who helped determine whether not a patient is is eligible for made. There is a bunch of other steps for this step is is the one that um i'm thinking about now.

So I I was at one of those assessments you know IT sort of as a surreal experience you be in the room while your mom is talking with a doctor explaining why he wants to it's just a strange thing um but another aspect of that that was surreal for me was like, so i'm sitting in a room listening to a conversation between my mom and a doctor who's never met my mom, trying to assess my mom sort of material, physical and psychological situation. And then, you know what, we all know that this person is gonna give a thumbs up or thumbs down at the end of IT. And I don't think anyone was uh dishonest or or negligent or anything like that, but I think that what does this doctor really know about this this situation?

You know, there is a strange dynamic of my mom wants something from this doctor. The doctor knows that is asking questions that clearly have for, like a Better term, like correct answers in the situation. Just something about the whole thing seemed both totally insufficient to determine what my mom actually thinks and feels.

And then also, on some level, just an example of medical hubris. Like why would this doctor think he can understand the forests of the situation based on a one hour remote? Because the whole thing felt a little bit like a charade to me, or a game we're all willingly entered in. Um why isn't .

IT interesting? okay. So first of all, that the clinton who assess your mother reviewed her medical history and IT was extensive, i'm sure.

So there was not only a description of the diagnosis of L. S, but also her carian over time and her reaction to that, her reaction tools, medications that were given to alleviate her suffering. And so the doctor had a lot more information than what he got from that one hour.

And secondly, our job during those assessments is to make sure that the person understands their condition. And you remember some of the L S. Patients we assess can't talk.

And when somebody is no verbal, it's it's more struggle. But your mother was still verbal, right? yeah. So being able to understand and that he understood her condition, that SHE understood her options, that probably wasn't very difficult for the assessor.

And that was the basic thing that we want because we have a eligibility criteria that we have to go through, that there is the easy ones over eighteen eligible for canadian medical insurance that's an equivalent of residency status. And so those are all the easy ones we check off. And then the more are complex ones, are capacity to make decisions and um the understanding. So yes, that is the main thing that we are assessing is do they understand this decision they're making after we know that they have checked all the other boxes?

I I have to admit you know I was wrestling with what I thought were the um a pytho logical problems of made assessment. I was just taking how can these people really know what might mom is thinking but I guess your point is it's not their job to know what my mom is thinking.

Your mother had write.

Made applicants have to be a of sound mind. You have to determine that there being rational and logical. And this is something .

that I struggled with .

a little bit when I came to my mom's decision to you made. Um SHE was physically suffering, but then was also depressed and you know depression as I understand that the medical definition is that it's it's a mood disorder. So how can we say with certainty that someone experiencing a disorder ted mood, or a disorder ted state of mind, is making a rational choice?

exactly. So this is something that we have to work on in that kind of situation instead of asking somebody if their mood is low, which hers was, of course. And many of my patients who are dying because they're losing so much, I mean, there is in north and like your mother have one loss after another loss after another loss and that's really depressing.

And so um how do you fix through out whether they have a mood disorder that disorders they're thinking so they can sink clearly about making a logical decision? So what I look at in someone like that is, when people are clinically depressed, they tend to believe that they are bad people, that the world world's a bad place, that is their fault, that things are going wrong. And that is disorder thinking that might respond to therapy, even in a dying person whose suffering physically.

But if a person like your mother says, i'm losing everything, the things that used to give me joy, I can't do anymore. What's the point in going on just to get worse and worse? That's pretty logical. She's recognizing the truth of the situation.

I'm also curious about the subject of made and grief my best friend a five years ago a died from suicide you know not medically assisted um and and and that for me was a real you know was a complete surprise to me totally out of the blue and I am so .

sorry I really felt like .

a ruptured that I still feel like it's not closed in five years later.

I think the closest i've gotten is that accepted that like it's just always going to be a bit a painful question mark there that as far as I can take that but but with my mama, I don't have any of those feelings at all the feelings of ruptures and emotional discommoding lation you and and my hunch is that made had a lot to do with that you know was her choice um IT was a clear choice. You know we knew when when he was gona die. We had time to spend just with her. I asked her everything I need to ask her instead, everything I needed to say to her and you and I think as a result I I felt prepared for uh for my for my mom died. Um do you have any sense of of the connection between made and grief or yes.

we need to know more, but there are clear differences between grieving after made versus grieving from sudden desks like your friend or expected, but natural desks and they have to do with as a planning. So far a lot of people, the planning for an assisted death allows for people to do exactly what you said, say the things that need to be said and ask the questions that needed to be asked. And people say that that makes IT easier but the harder thing for some people is that this person left earlier than they needed to, they could have gone on longer and that can feel like abandonment and um rejection in a way that is very hard on the survivors in terms of suicide versus made you described IT beautifully. I mean, the sadness of a suicide, the violence, the fact they have to do IT long and not have anybody with them, uh, that IT is unsanctioned, a police have to be involved in sector IT makes IT all more difficult on the survivors.

I just want to pull back again for a few minutes. You know, one of the recurring fears around maid has to do with the idea of coercion or or people feeling forced into IT because they don't want to be a burden or you know or maybe they don't feel like they can get proper care to alleviate they're suffering.

How does a made accessors make determinations in those kinds of examples? Because I don't know that somebody y's going to say i'm going through this because my kids think i'm being a burden or my partner thinks i'm going to be a burden. So you are i'm pressured into this or I don't have the money. So how do you how do you figure that out?

Yeah, I learned this early on my first year. I had two patients around the same time who both had progressive neurological diseases and one of them was Richard and he was richer in every way he had not only a beautiful home and money but SHE had a loving husband and children and friends and he had this rich life and SHE needed full care and he had um her staff SHE called him her staffe who did her caregiving the man um on the other hand lived in a horrible housing situation and he was poor in every way. He had no money.

He had caregivers whom he fought with all the time. And I I thought, you know, like, okay, so this guy got a million dollars and was able to afford staff and home. We want to live longer. And, you know, I came back thinking, they said the same thing to me.

The woman who had was surrounded by this loving family and this beautiful home said, all I can do is get put into my relinked and sit there all day, and then get put in the bed and lie there all night. And that's all I can do this on, good enough. And the man said exactly the same thing, the life isn't good enough when all I can do is get put into a chair and sit there and then get put in to bed and lie there. That's not life. And so, you know, we all struggle with this when we see that part of the suffering is the poverty, or at least poverty makes us suffer worse.

But maybe I misunderstanding the story a little bit because did you just describe in essence, where people were explicit with you about what they wanted? I mean, the material circumstances that might have been different. But like, do you feel like you're able to determine whether or not people are being fully honest with you and age?

You can lie. Yeah, of course they can lie. And I can be duped to absolutely.

But I still have to go through my entire checklist and I have to know that they truly have the grieve and a metal medical condition, that they do understand their condition and its prognosis and the treatments and the alternatives. And I explore the suffering. You know, I don't just accept one people. People say the pains too bad, but course, people can lie.

Have you ever experience situations where the family was unhappy with the main decision? Oh yes. what? What were the ripples from that?

Well, anger, of course. So i've had a number of my patience who said, i'm not telling mom, you get to tell her after i'm dead really. So you, so I I remember one family, and the wife and brother were with my patient.

He was only in his thirties, but he was at the end stage of a horrible, horrible cancer, def, and and and suffering and h. So his brother was there, and he says to my patient, he gotta tell mom and he said, i'm not tellum well, i'm not telling mom, do you've got to mom? Um so you know, we're dealing with complex family dynamic sometimes and we try to negotiate a little and say, you know, i've said to many people, listen, you're going to be gone, but they left behind.

What could you do to make IT a little easier on them? And so now we talk about that, how could you really could you write letters? Could you do videos? Could you do something to make a little easier on them?

You I feel that some of the critics of made, I just think there they're making some bad faith arguments know you can sometimes get the sense when you watch certain videos or or or read certain arguments that that they think doctors are out here. You champing at the bit to sign more people up for made and in sort of like a willie nearly fashion tonight.

And you know what do I know? But I I my sense as much more the doctors take these decisions very seriously and are following the rules and are not caviar about IT. So as I think there's just some kind of bogus arguing going on, but are there any arguments on the more liberal pro made side that you think are maybe made bad faith?

Sorry, I can't think of one that is like .

that yeah for me. One is you know some of the push back against the slippery slope idea that you have allow people to do IT, more people will do IT and IT seems to me that that's obviously true. If you, I think anywhere medical assistance and dying has been allowed, then you know, gradually the numbers go up.

Yeah, there is a real change in the culture. So now when I meet a new patient, they often tell me, oh, I know my hat had made or whatever. So IT has become part of the culture. They understand the whole issue, the process, uh, because we've had IT for nine years and so they know somebody. And the other thing that makes IT up just part of the culture now is that when somebody gets a diagnosis and no three of my close friends had these diagnosis in the last nine years, instantly when you have that horrible diagnosis, you also know your options right from the beginning and of my the close friends who had one had made one didn't um had an natural death and the other is living way beyond this um quite amazingly but I was there like for the one who didn't have IT he talked about that he said if we ever get that too bad that's what I want um and he kept deciding that IT wasn't up bad and he went through a natural death so that's what our cultures like now IT helps the people who don't have made the one who's still living quite well. Um uh I mean he knows is there he knows that should his cancer lead to really unbearable suffering he's got away out.

Another thing that I was a really thinking about with the experience with my mom was why doctors are involved in this decision at all. If we accept that people have a right to bottling autonomy and can make their own decisions about their own lives, why are doctors the ones who my mom had to go to and say, let me do this I mean, I understand why we need to to administer in my mom's case you know the the injection but there is something sort of internalised dog. why?

So um I think that it's reasonable that our country decided to use doctors as the gatekeepers. It's not perfect. It's not necessarily even a full sort of human right.

But in general, our country prospects to make decisions on the basis of patients rights and patients the good of the patient. And so you know, we are the trusted gatekeepers and it's not perfect at all. I mean, another country like australia, they give IT to a committee.

So you have to the doctors prepare the documents for the committee. But it's a committee with an esthetic and layer and doctors and someone who actually make the decision. So that is another way of of doing IT. That would not be just doctors. Why do you .

think it's reasonable that in canada, doctors are the arbiter?

We help make IT assisted dying more accessible to patients s than the australian system where IT takes many weeks to get through that complex process. So i'm accesses Better. And you know, we're not a faceless committee. We are people with faces and empathy and more human system.

I, anna, go back again for a minute ude to my mom situation. You know, that doctor who helped my mom to die who was great. You know he just came in and and made the family feel comfortable and are clear and made my mom feel comfortable. I I thought he did um an amazing job but um after SHE asked my mom, you know whether everything was cleared to her or if there any questions my you so brave, you know you said let's um but that that's who my mom was but um to after the the you know there was the the drugs were um injected and my mom was non verbal the the doctor in a very caring way you know resort softly under her breath set of you know looking at my mom she's so in control um IT was just such a moving thing to hear in that was really wanting to hear and but I don't fully know what he meant when the daughter said and I wonder when you are in that situation, do you feel like you are are seeing things in in the non verbal patient or or understanding something about what they're going through in that moment?

Or remember that what we the drugs we give in canada are gentle and a said, I can most people have had an experience for the general anaesthetic so they know exactly what it's like. We start with sensitive, so you just feel kind of sleepy and maybe bit y and then you're sleep and then you're in a deep and you know nothing. We know that in that process of going into coma, hearing is the latest thing to go. And so a lot of us will tell the loved ones around the bed, SHE can still hear you and or SHE probably can still hear you, and they'll say their last, you know, I love you and that sort of thing in case they can still here. But um R R method makes IT very click, as you noticed its only minutes.

yeah. Do you think anything happens after people die? No, no.

I talk about this with all my patience, ask them what they think um so I know whether ah they are expecting uh an afterlife, but no, I don't personally expecting. After drive, we know that both most made providers and most made recipients tend to be not very spiritual.

Do you think that is?

Part of the entire attitude towards having control of your life, the kind of people who art villagers are you know well educated, its sector more likely to have choose made where as highly religious people um people very connected within certain ethnic groups, certain cultures are less likely to you know I suspect .

my spiritual or religious belief are in line with your yours. I don't think anything happens after we die and I don't really believe in higher power. Um but there there was something um profound for me with my mom and you know really seeing somebody y's alive, ve alive and a second later they're dead. I don't I just hadn't in any meaningful way been forced to confront the fact that the mind between life and death is it's a hard beat. It's a split second um and that was um I think maybe that sounds nice if kind of my mind opening for me um do you feel of wonderment door or all or uh uh matter factness about that transition from life to death?

I know it's it's it's amazing transition for the person and for the family and IT. You know, earlier in my career, I delivered over a thousand babies, and I was involved in families welcoming a new person into their lives. And that is also incredibly profound experience.

And I here people are saying goodbye for the last time to somebody who's been so important to them last night. You know, the new window said, fifty seven years, I am going go on without them. So have a profound change for for this woman to now be a wider instead of wife and so it's a profound experience thinking of A A doctor I was .

talking to told me this anette about a uh a palates care uh physician and and that doctor said, you know you you should stop when the decisions you make don't bother you anymore you you feel so um or seem to be so comfortable and at ease with your work. Do you think .

your work is the kind of .

thing that a doctor can get too comfortable with?

Well, remember. We're doctors. So we're used to tragedies were used to being in in other people's Prices. So in order to do this, you have to be able to protect yourself and you learn that in medical school um how to set boundaries and not take home other people's tragedies and make them your own or you couldn't do the work and you couldn't enjoy the work and find meaning and value in the work. And it's different for every person how they take that.

For example, I spent twenty years working in the sexual assault service here in vancouver and that meant that I was spending time with women who had been assaulted just just assaulted you know and and traumatized in a terrible way and I was able to do that without uh taking on a lot of secondary trauma um in a whole lot of people can't you know one of my friends joined the service brief ly and said I can't get back into bed with my husband after i've come away from a sexual so case uh so I Better quit and he did and he still married which is great so, you know, you have to know yourself. You have to know what you can tolerate and what you can do. But if you set boundaries so strongly that you no longer have empathy and you no longer care about the people, then you've gone too far.

After the break, I called doctor wee back to ask about the dangers in all the different work he does.

Well, I must say that the andy abortion people are worse. They shoot and have my colleagues and frighten me with death, whereas the intimate protesters are more likely to to pray for me.

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Hi, doctor. web. How are you guys?

So in a .

addition to your work with made, you've been an abortion provider for a long time. That's right. You you touched on this a little bit earlier, but I want to know more about the connection between that work and your maid work beyond the fact that they both have to do with bottles. Autonomy, I mean, you you're dealing with patients at two such different phases of life. What is the emotional interplay there for you?

Oh, I love going between, you know, dealing with Young women in the morning who are, you know, planning their lives around, you know, having children, not having children having are the choices over what they want to do. And then in the afternoon I might be seeing somebody who's planning their death. It's a wonderful baLance for me.

So besides bodily autonomy, it's uh the social constructs are very interesting because in canada, the U. S. And the majority of people approached the majority of people believe that women should have the right to control their bodies and people should able to control their death.

And yet there's still a lot of sigma. There's a difficulty with access for both and there's difficulty with finding of providers, finding spaces, finding of these things. Ah so it's is very interesting.

And you know the same people are against me. I ve had lots of anti abortion people against me and now anti made people against me. So yeah, there's a quite a few similarities.

Do you find that opponents of abortion and made demonize the work in similar ways?

But I must say that the andy portion people are worse. They shoot and and stab my colleagues and threaten me with death. Whether the antibodies testers are more likely to pray for me, which is fine. So they are less violence, which is is good, but their rhetoric is similar. I mean, i'm of course, called the syrian murder.

There was a colleague of yours in vancouver and around two thousand or so who was .

shot and stopped the same colleague.

Can you tell me that story?

He was having breakfast in his and someone shot him through the window and he is growing. He almost died in blood loss and had have a number of surgeries and um did recover and did go back to work. Um and then a few years later, someone stopped him at work.

To that, give you pause about doing the kind of work you do.

Yeah, I mean, I I had to look around me. I still had Young children and I had to look into myself and decide, 嗯, 今天我 反 going to be anxious all the time。 That's not a good thing.

But my initially dropped and I was able to continue to work. And now it's much less there's much less violence against the portion providers. So there was a time when I was wearing a old proof best to work every day and did that .

those feelings of anxiety just ab over time because you weren't getting threats in the same way? Or did you just eliminate to a .

higher level of anxious went away? I'm not an interest. So it's not surprising that my anxiety that particular you know, the day gary was shot, you know that I was anxious.

Do you think an anxious person could do the kind of work you do?

Well, each handle exited is on the there are own ways .

in your work um is an O B G I N you know, imagine that you've dealt with maternal death or sort of, uh, unexpected in infant death. Have those experienced sort of colored your understanding of you're .

made work well, being a doctor means you work with tragedy. I was so lucky to be involved in in delivering babies and did you know, over a thousand and almost all is there's great joy in the room. But of course, when is the parents who are crying and the baby is not, then is horrible tragedy and grief. And so that's part of being a doctor. And i've been a doctor for a long time.

I don't know that every doctor necessarily accept that. I mean, there are all kinds of doctors who I think, uh, not only don't often deal with tragedy, but maybe even are wanting to avoid having to deal with tragedy. So I wonder you have a perception of what medicine is fundamentally about. That also has something to do with why you do the kind of work that you do that is may be not shared by all doctors.

Well, for example, not all doctors want to do palate care, even though most specialities how people dying. But you know what I couldn't tolerate, uh, and was so grateful I didn't have to deal with. Hardly ever was the dying children.

So I really admire the pediatricians who could work with these very, very seriously children and and dying children, because that one just freak me out. So we all have our limitations. I could deal with adults in their tragedies, but when I came to their children, I couldn't so that was little too hard.

Yeah um you know my mom's death and is the the uh the the sorry the the bravery that that he showed you just really had you seem to be lacking in fear um and thinking about IT since he died just made me realized there's just so much bulsted in my life that I I need to be braver about like if you can be brave about that I certainly to be brave about some of the basically inconsequential things that I feel like i'm not brave enough about in my life and that's something that that I feel like i'm now caring with me that I wasn't before. You know. So for you, a person who's around death so much, has your experience with death taught you anything about what makes a good life?

Oh yeah as I mean my patients teach me so much about that. And I mean, at my age, obviously i've lost loved ones, not just my parents. And so that helps to make you realize what's important in life. We just had canadian thanksgiving, and so I saw all my kids and and you know, these these are the important, really important things. And spending time with friends and being with patience and everything I do, I I mean, I feel like everything I do should be worthwhile or fun, preferably both.

That doctor Allen whip in the weeks following my conversation with web, a judge in british columbia issued a rare temporary injunction preventing the medically asted death of a fifty three old woman had been approved by weep for made. This was in response to a civil claim from the woman's partner that we've had wrongly approved the procedure because the patient's condition was mental, not physical. The case is still pending in .

we've declined to comment.

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I felt like we were trained to always present ourselves in the most perfect, perfect way and making sure that i'm a perfect girl for everyone.

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