Brian Finnemore, MD

   During his forty years of medical practice, Brian saw several people die. Some died with equanimity but they were the exception. It seemed that most people died in a hospital environment encumbered by IV lines, catheters, and oxygen masks. Death was the enemy, to be fought at all costs (death always won). Analgesia was eschewed — the patient might become addicted!
   Fortunately, thanks to Kubler-Ross and others, the hospice and palliative-care movements came into being, and in some quarters attitudes towards death and dying have changed.
   As medical schools began to recognise the value of rural training, Brian became a tutor for a great number of medical students and residents, as well as nurse practitioners. His goal was to help them appreciate that understanding and compassion are the most important qualities for any member of the healing professions.
   Brian and many like-minded physicians have abetted and probably expedited the transition from life to death, for patients who keenly desired that transition, with liberal amounts of narcotics.
   He strongly believes that every person has the right to choose the manner of his/her passing.
   With the exception of ten years practising family medicine in Kelowna his professional life was spent in underserviced areas of the central Arctic, Newfoundland, northern Ontario and B.C. Now in retirement, he is involved with a variety of volunteer groups, one of which is actively promoting the idea of fair trade for primary agricultural products, particularly from the "third world".
    Although Newfoundland is his favourite province, he and his wife live on Saltspring Island in British Columbia.