Jack Kevorkian Machine

Guest commentary: Love is stronger than death

Like many of his patients, Dr. Jack Kevorkian apparently died alone. His patients were supplied with one of two machines, a Thanatron or a Mercitron. One machine delivered a concoction of medicines intravenously; the other delivered carbon monoxide. Both machines caused death. Kevorkian responded to the anguished calls of people who were suffering with an efficient technological answer.

I remember watching on "60 Minutes" the death of Thomas Youk, the one death at which Kevorkian was present. Just two years earlier, I had finished my residency training in internal medicine. Watching Youk's death, I thought about all of the machines that kept people alive: the ventilators I had tweaked, the infusion pumps I had titrated. Seeing Kevorkian work on Youk, I was struck by the cold, procedural efficiency that Kevorkian and I shared. Yet, there was a stark contrast. On the one hand, technology was used to cause death; on the other, technology was used to cause life to continue, often in people who would die only a few days later.

On Jan. 1, 1994, I was present for the death of a woman named Becky. She was in her late 20s. She had AIDS and was admitted with a particularly bad case of pneumonia, complicated by her frailty and other AIDS-related infections. Becky had not been improving; in fact, she was worsening.

As I read her chart that day, a woman walked out of Becky's room; it was her sister, escorting a boy of about 5 years of age. She was teary eyed; the boy did not seem to know what to make of it all. A few minutes later, I walked into the room and into the middle of a conversation between Becky and her mother.

"It is time," Becky said, with tears streaming down her face. She struggled to take off the facemask delivering oxygen.

"No, Becky," her mother said, as she struggled to put the mask back on.

"Momma," Becky said, with her East Texas accent, "I told you that after I saw him one more time, I would be ready. We have said our good-byes. Now it is time."

Her mother, not knowing what to do, shook her head in defiance. "No, dear! He still needs you. Please leave the oxygen on, honey."

Within a few seconds, everything became clear. I realized that Becky was talking about her death, that the boy was her son, and that she had made her peace with him. I sat down next to Becky's bed, asking a few medical questions. She redirected me to existential questions. She wanted to stop the medications and to be allowed to die. It became clear that Becky had been planning her death after she had one last visit with her 5-year-old son. I stepped out, spoke with the attending physician, spoke with Becky's mother, and then returned to Becky's bedside to tell her that we would work to make her comfortable and to allow her to die.

PhotoBlog - Jack Kevorkian, convicted in assisted suicides, dies at 83

Dr. Jack Kevorkian, seated in a wheelchair, 65, of Royal Oak, Mich., rests his head on the defense table in Oakland County District court in Royal Oak, Michigan, Friday, Dec. 10, 1993. Kevorkian was in court for his preliminary hearing on charges he violated Michigan's ban on assisted suicide on Oct. 22, 1993, suicide death of Merian Fredrick of Ann Arbor, Mich. Kevorkian is in his 11th day of a hunger strike in jail.

Dr. Jack Kevorkian meets the press in homemade stocks before his arraignment on assisted suicide charges at the Oakland County courthouse in Pontiac, Mich., Thursday, Sept. 14, 1995. Kevorkian, a retired pathologist who advocates doctors helping the terminally ill who wish to commit suicide, was wearing the laminated cardboard stocks in apparent reference to a state Supreme Court ruling that said assisted suicide could be prosecuted in Michigan under common law.

Jack Kevorkian waits to announce he is running in the November election as an independent for a seat in the U.S. Congress in Southfield, Michigan in this March 24, 2008 file photo. Kevorkian, the Michigan pathologist who put assisted suicide on the world's medical ethics stage, died in the early morning hours of June 3, 2011, said his lawyer Mayer Morganroth. Kevorkian, 83, died at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, where he had been hospitalized for about two weeks with kidney and heart problems.

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