Member, Clinician’s Advisory Council
Dr. Georges L’Espérance is a neurosurgeon based in Montreal, Quebec. After he obtained his medical degree at the University de Nancy (France), and had a three-year formation in neuroradiology, Dr. L’Espérance pursued his neurosurgical training at Laval University, Quebec City. He practiced neurosurgery in Québec from 1984 to 1990, then in Montreal, mostly in a tertiary Traumatology Center, Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur de Montréal.
In 1998, he completed a master’s in health services administration at the University of Montreal and received the Robert-Wood-Johnson’s award in 1998. While involved in academic medicine, he has been a co-investigator in several clinical studies in neurosurgery and functional rehabilitation and presented more than fifty scientific communications; he gave multiple lectures on scientific or ethical questions. He is currently an associate clinical professor at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Montreal. In 1999, with Dr. François Sestier, he founded the medicolegal cursus at the faculty of medicine at the University of Montreal. He has more than thirty years of experience in Independent Medical Evaluation. His neurosurgical clinical experiences and his personal reflections naturally led him to question the purpose of medicine and particularly ethical questions, in particular over-medicalization and end-of-life issues. Since November 2014, he has been president of the Quebec Association for the Right to Die in Dignity (AQDMD – Association Québécoise pour le Droit de Mourir dans la Dignité) and now devotes most of his time to it and is involved in providing the ultimate compassionate care: assisted medical death for those who want it.