Learning how to support people at the end of life: Lori’s experience

The Global Doula Project awarded Lori McCole-Mazur a full scholarship in 2023 to complete End-of-Life Doula training at the University of Vermont.

Lori is a born helper, listener, and encourager. After supporting families at the beginning of life as a nanny, Lori realized that she could use the same skills at the end of life. After all, there are a lot of similarities. Both at the beginning of life as well as at the end, there’s usually confusion, lack of sleep, practical work to be done and decisions to be made, all while trying to keep our heads above water in a flood of emotion. The Global Doula Project is proud to support Lori and people like her on their journey to become doulas. We need more doulas in this world. We need more helpers and listeners. Birth and death are both roads that no one should travel alone.

It was a pleasure to connect with Lori to hear about what she learned in the online course, which she highly recommends to anyone considering a career as an end-of-life doula. The training started out with a close examination of students’ personal feelings about death and dying. Students were asked to consider their own wishes for the end of life.

I had a couple of “a-ha” moments during this interview, and one was when we talked about why it’s important to be clear on your wishes, especially in a hospital where protocol rules.

“Doctors are trained to save us,” Lori said. “They will do whatever they can to keep us alive.”

That’s true, I thought. In the hospital, saving lives comes first, listening to the wishes of patients comes next.. or is it even a consideration if the patient has difficulty communicating?

We should all think about what our end of life preferences are, and then WRITE THEM DOWN.

The second “a-ha” moment was when Lori told me about a tagline she wrote for a workshop she’ll holding at her local library.

“If you talk about death, it doesn’t make it come sooner. And if you don’t talk about death, it’s still going to come.”

I love that, and it’s so true. We are all going to die, so why not prepare for it?

Thank you to all of the death doulas, hospice workers, and listeners out there who are helping people plan for the end of life and making the transition as smooth as possible, both for the dying as well as their family and friends. All of us here at the Global Doula Project support you and salute you.

Are you an end-of-life doula or interested in becoming one? What makes you passionate about this role?