Singing a Goodbye: My First MAID Experience and a Dignified Farewell
A Toronto physician recounts witnessing his 93-year-old patient, Mrs. MacNeil, choose medical assistance in dying (MAID). Surrounded by family and caregivers, she faced the process with autonomy and calm, gifting him a wooden seagull and inviting him to sing as she peacefully died. The experience prompts reflection on what constitutes a dignified death, the primacy of patient autonomy, and the physician’s own confrontation with mortality.