The End in
Two Acts
He’d been an EMT in Boston, a country doctor in rural Oregon and was now a family physician and part-time medical director at a clinic in Portland that served the poor. He was, as doctors often are, intense and driven, but he also was tender-hearted and soft-spoken, one of those rare physicians who understand the extraordinary medicinal qualities of eye contact.
He was in Sacramento that day last June to explain to the committee how he, a Hippocratic-oath-swearing, “Do no harm” physician, could support and be actively involved in helping people die. He had not been an immediate fan of the law. His patients had converted him. He spoke passionately about honoring and respecting patients. “The notion that physicians know best and that patients cannot be trusted with the ability to make good decisions about their care, even the care at the end of their life, is an outdated ethical precept,” he told the committee.
David Bradley first met Dr. Gideonse in the Veterans Administration hospital in Portland. David had moved to Oregon from New Mexico a few weeks after getting his six-months-to-live prognosis. One of his daughters, Allison, had driven down to get him. They’d talked on the phone about his illness, about the time he had left, about what he wanted to do. When David told his daughter that he’d “take care of it himself,” she was scared. She knew that she’d support him, whatever he decided to do, but she heard fear and panic in his voice, and she wanted any decision to come from another place entirely.