The Last Doctor
Lessons in Living from the Front Lines of Medical Assistance in Dying
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wish list failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $32.63
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Jean Marmoreo
-
Eve Crawford
-
Written by:
-
Jean Marmoreo
-
Johanna Schneller
About this listen
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
*SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2022 WRITERS' TRUST BALSILLIE PRIZE FOR PUBLIC POLICY*
An urgently important exploration of the human stories behind Canada's evolving acceptance of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), from one of its first and most thoughtful practitioners.
Dr. Jean Marmoreo spent her career keeping people alive. But when the Supreme Court of Canada gave the green light to Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) in 2016, she became one of a small group of doctors who chose to immediately train themselves in this new field. Over the course of a single year, Marmoreo learns about end-of-life practices in bustling Toronto hospitals, in hospices, and in the facilities of smaller communities. She found that the needed services were often minimal—or non-existent.
The Last Doctor recounts Marmoreo's crash course in MAiD and introduces a range of very different and memorable patients, some aged, some suffering from degenerative conditions or with a terminal disease, some surrounded by supportive love, some quite alone, who ask her help to end their suffering with dignity and on their own terms.
Dr. Marmoreo also shares her own emotional transformation as she climbs a steep learning curve and learns the intimate truths of the vast range of end-of-life situations. What she experiences with MAiD shakes her to her core, makes her think deeply about pain, loneliness, and joy, and brings her closer to life’s most profound questions.
At a time when end-of-life care and its quality are more in the public eye than ever before, The Last Doctor provides an accessibly personal, deeply humane, and authoritative guide through this difficult subject.
©2022 Jean Marmoreo and Johanna Schneller (P)2022 VikingYou may also enjoy...
-
This Is Assisted Dying
- A Doctor's Story of Empowering Patients at the End of Life
- Written by: Stefanie Green MD
- Narrated by: Stefanie Green MD
- Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dr. Stefanie Green has been forging new paths in the field of medical assistance in dying since 2016. In her landmark memoir, Dr. Green reveals the reasons a patient might seek an assisted death, how the process works, what the event itself can look like, the reactions of those involved, and what it feels like to oversee proceedings and administer medications that hasten death. Deeply authentic and emotional, This Is Assisted Dying contextualizes the myriad personal, professional, and practical issues surrounding assisted dying by bringing listeners into the room with Dr. Green.
-
-
Thoroughly enjoyed
- By Passage Marine Ltd. on 2022-12-19
Written by: Stefanie Green MD
-
With the End in Mind
- Dying, Death, and Wisdom in an Age of Denial
- Written by: Kathryn Mannix
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Carling, Kathryn Mannix
- Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Modern medical technology is allowing us to live longer and fuller lives than ever before. But with changes in the way we understand medicine come changes in the way we understand death. Once a familiar and gentle process, death has come to be something from which we shy away, preferring to fight it desperately than to accept its inevitability. Palliative care has a long tradition in Britain, where Dr. Kathryn Mannix has practiced it for 30 years. In this book, she shares beautifully crafted stories from a lifetime of caring for the dying.
-
-
A calm voice amour the storm I find myself in.
- By Amazon Customer on 2021-06-20
Written by: Kathryn Mannix
-
The Fran Lebowitz Reader
- Written by: Fran Lebowitz
- Narrated by: Fran Lebowitz
- Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In "elegant, finely honed prose" (The Washington Post Book World), Lebowitz limns the vicissitudes of contemporary urban life—its fads, trends, crazes, morals, and fashions. By turns ironic, facetious, deadpan, sarcastic, wry, wisecracking, and waggish, Fran Lebowitz is always wickedly entertaining.
-
-
Absolutely hilarious!
- By Amazon Customer on 2023-11-27
Written by: Fran Lebowitz
-
Something Lost, Something Gained
- Reflections on Life, Love, and Liberty
- Written by: Hillary Rodham Clinton
- Narrated by: Hillary Rodham Clinton
- Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What would it be like to sit down for an impassioned, entertaining conversation with Hillary Clinton? In Something Lost, Something Gained, Hillary offers her candid views on life and love, politics, liberty, democracy, the threats we face, and the future within our reach. She describes the strength she draws from her deepest friendships, her Methodist faith, and the nearly fifty years she’s been married to President Bill Clinton—all with the wisdom that comes from looking back on a full life with fresh eyes.
-
-
Something lost something gained
- By Sid Fox on 2024-09-27
Written by: Hillary Rodham Clinton
-
The In-Between
- Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments
- Written by: Hadley Vlahos R.N.
- Narrated by: Hadley Vlahos R.N.
- Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Talking about death and dying is considered taboo in polite company, and even in the medical field. Our ideas about dying are confusing at best: Will our memories flash before our eyes? Regrets consume our thoughts? Does a bright light appear at the end of a tunnel? For most people, it will be a slower process, one eased with preparedness, good humor, and a bit of faith. At the forefront of changing attitudes around palliative care is hospice nurse Hadley Vlahos, who shows that end-of-life care can teach us just as much about how to live as it does about how we die.
-
-
Worst I’ve listened to
- By Richard R Kranstz on 2023-10-24
Written by: Hadley Vlahos R.N.
-
Death Interrupted
- How Modern Medicine Is Complicating the Way We Die
- Written by: Blair Bigham
- Narrated by: Robert Lee
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the widening grey zone between life and death, doctors fight with doctors, families feel pressured to make tough decisions about their loved ones and lawyers are left to argue life-and-death cases in the courts. Meanwhile, intensive care patients are caught in purgatory, attached to machines and unable to speak for themselves. In Death Interrupted, Dr Blair Bigham seeks to help listeners understand the options facing them at the end of their lives.
-
-
Amazing
- By Andrea Wood on 2024-02-06
Written by: Blair Bigham
-
This Is Assisted Dying
- A Doctor's Story of Empowering Patients at the End of Life
- Written by: Stefanie Green MD
- Narrated by: Stefanie Green MD
- Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dr. Stefanie Green has been forging new paths in the field of medical assistance in dying since 2016. In her landmark memoir, Dr. Green reveals the reasons a patient might seek an assisted death, how the process works, what the event itself can look like, the reactions of those involved, and what it feels like to oversee proceedings and administer medications that hasten death. Deeply authentic and emotional, This Is Assisted Dying contextualizes the myriad personal, professional, and practical issues surrounding assisted dying by bringing listeners into the room with Dr. Green.
-
-
Thoroughly enjoyed
- By Passage Marine Ltd. on 2022-12-19
Written by: Stefanie Green MD
-
With the End in Mind
- Dying, Death, and Wisdom in an Age of Denial
- Written by: Kathryn Mannix
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Carling, Kathryn Mannix
- Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Modern medical technology is allowing us to live longer and fuller lives than ever before. But with changes in the way we understand medicine come changes in the way we understand death. Once a familiar and gentle process, death has come to be something from which we shy away, preferring to fight it desperately than to accept its inevitability. Palliative care has a long tradition in Britain, where Dr. Kathryn Mannix has practiced it for 30 years. In this book, she shares beautifully crafted stories from a lifetime of caring for the dying.
-
-
A calm voice amour the storm I find myself in.
- By Amazon Customer on 2021-06-20
Written by: Kathryn Mannix
-
The Fran Lebowitz Reader
- Written by: Fran Lebowitz
- Narrated by: Fran Lebowitz
- Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In "elegant, finely honed prose" (The Washington Post Book World), Lebowitz limns the vicissitudes of contemporary urban life—its fads, trends, crazes, morals, and fashions. By turns ironic, facetious, deadpan, sarcastic, wry, wisecracking, and waggish, Fran Lebowitz is always wickedly entertaining.
-
-
Absolutely hilarious!
- By Amazon Customer on 2023-11-27
Written by: Fran Lebowitz
-
Something Lost, Something Gained
- Reflections on Life, Love, and Liberty
- Written by: Hillary Rodham Clinton
- Narrated by: Hillary Rodham Clinton
- Length: 13 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What would it be like to sit down for an impassioned, entertaining conversation with Hillary Clinton? In Something Lost, Something Gained, Hillary offers her candid views on life and love, politics, liberty, democracy, the threats we face, and the future within our reach. She describes the strength she draws from her deepest friendships, her Methodist faith, and the nearly fifty years she’s been married to President Bill Clinton—all with the wisdom that comes from looking back on a full life with fresh eyes.
-
-
Something lost something gained
- By Sid Fox on 2024-09-27
Written by: Hillary Rodham Clinton
-
The In-Between
- Unforgettable Encounters During Life's Final Moments
- Written by: Hadley Vlahos R.N.
- Narrated by: Hadley Vlahos R.N.
- Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Talking about death and dying is considered taboo in polite company, and even in the medical field. Our ideas about dying are confusing at best: Will our memories flash before our eyes? Regrets consume our thoughts? Does a bright light appear at the end of a tunnel? For most people, it will be a slower process, one eased with preparedness, good humor, and a bit of faith. At the forefront of changing attitudes around palliative care is hospice nurse Hadley Vlahos, who shows that end-of-life care can teach us just as much about how to live as it does about how we die.
-
-
Worst I’ve listened to
- By Richard R Kranstz on 2023-10-24
Written by: Hadley Vlahos R.N.
-
Death Interrupted
- How Modern Medicine Is Complicating the Way We Die
- Written by: Blair Bigham
- Narrated by: Robert Lee
- Length: 7 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the widening grey zone between life and death, doctors fight with doctors, families feel pressured to make tough decisions about their loved ones and lawyers are left to argue life-and-death cases in the courts. Meanwhile, intensive care patients are caught in purgatory, attached to machines and unable to speak for themselves. In Death Interrupted, Dr Blair Bigham seeks to help listeners understand the options facing them at the end of their lives.
-
-
Amazing
- By Andrea Wood on 2024-02-06
Written by: Blair Bigham
What the critics say
One of:
The Hill Times' 100 Best Books of 2022
TVO's "Books we couldn't stop talking about in 2022"
The Globe and Mail’s “64 books to keep you warm as the weather cools”
CBC’s “60 works of Canadian nonfiction to watch for in fall 2022”
"A remarkable book . . . extremely well-written, touching, full of love and nuance. Some humour, too, because both life and death are full of it. It is a must-read for anyone who wishes to understand the issue better."—Ottawa Citizen
“Dr. Jean Marmoreo has spent her medical career at the leading edge—of feminist practice, of comprehensive primary care, of pregnancy and birth care . . . and now as a witness to and faciliator of death. The moving and insightful moments of The Last Doctor offer a glimpse into the end of life in its complexity and beauty, and also into the remarkable gifts of one of Canada’s greatest family physicians.”—Danielle Martin, MD, bestselling author of Better Now: Six Big Ideas to Improve Health Care for All Canadians
“Powerfully honest and compelling, this book tackles the tough questions head on. MAiD is about choice, and these stories capture the truth of those who choose a dignified departure and the wonderful human beings who make it possible. Jean is one of those. In a simple yet profound way Jean makes the case that while MAiD does take away someone’s life, it first gives it back to them. That is indeed the power of good. Without the brave souls who take the risky, first steps we would have no Medicare, . . . no vaccines in this country. And without their compassion we would not have Medical Assistance in Dying to help those who want autonomy in life—and in death.”—Senator Pamela Wallin, Advocate for MAiD and Advance Requests, Member of the Special Joint Parliamentary Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying
What listeners say about The Last Doctor
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lori V
- 2023-02-19
Engaging and thoughtful
Loved everything about the book. So many wonderful examples of the complex nature of MAID. I would recommend this to all!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!