We offer expectant parents an abundance of preparation: prenatal classes, Lamaze, “prepared childbirth,” baby groups, and parenting workshops.
Category: Palliative
Body image in tokothanatology
That morning, two patients came to see me—one carrying new life, the other preparing to let go of it.
The first was a young woman in her third trimester, radiant and restless. She sat awkwardly on the exam table, her belly taut and high. “I don’t recognize myself anymore,” she said, laughing a little too quickly. “I used to be fit. I had abs. Now I can’t see my feet.”
What Kubler-Ross still teaches us about dying
I still remember the quiet after I told a patient her cancer had spread. She looked at me for a long time, then said,” You must be wrong”. I wasn’t– but in that moment, denial wasn’t a failure to understand. It was protection. She needed a few days before she could face what the scans had already shown.
Parallel Pioneers in Compassionate Care: Dr. Balfour Mount and Dr. Murray Enkin
One of my heroes died recently. Dr. Balfour Mount (1939-2025) was a Canadian pioneer in palliative care. He founded the first palliative care service, in fact the first in North America, at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal in 1974. Trained as a urologist and surgeon, he was moved by the suffering he witnessed among patients dying in his hospital.
Whose life is it anyway?
Many times over my years in family practice, I sat with people as they navigated some of the most tender and difficult crossroads of their lives. A teenager facing an unplanned pregnancy, a cancer patient thinking about medical assistance in dying, the person wrestling with depression and suicidal thoughts—the question that kept surfacing was: Who’s life is it anyway?