The topics of palliative care and euthanasia have long been the focus of many debates in the public sphere in connection to healthcare and quality of life. They raise complex and challenging questions and naturally, tend to conjure in our minds the idea of death rather than life. Konstantinos Mastorakis has spent most of the last decade researching these topics, recently arriving to McGill from Rome (Italy) where he completed his PhD in the Faculty of Bioethics at the University of Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum. Unlike what most of us may think, he explains that research on euthanasia and terminal illness does not only address the decision to end life. It is very much about “living” and exploring the ways in which hope and dignity can be offered to a patient and everyone who surrounds him/her. But when there is no cure in sight and death is imminent, one might ask what are we creating hope for? “Hope not only has to do with living two, three or six more months but it also has to do with feeling esteemed and loved until the very last moment”, says Mastorakis. Now a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Division of Oral Health and Society in the Faculty of Dentistry, he is working with Dr. Mary Ellen Macdonald and Dr. Franco Carnevale as part of the VOICE project in exploring the new Canadian legislation, Medical Assistance in Dying, to the care of children in pediatric palliative care through the support the David McCutcheon Postdoctoral Fellowship in Pediatric Palliative Care. Listen to the complete interview. Interviewer: Valerie Khayat
