Whanganui palliative care stalwart hangs up her stethoscope

Marion Taylor has just retired, after 38 years as a doctor and 15 at Hospice Whanganui. Photo / Bevan Conley

It has been a huge privilege to work as a doctor in hospice, Marion Taylor says.

"One of the most moving things has been how brave so many people are, in their dying phase."

Taylor finished work at the hospice on December 6.

She is a wonderful person and a wonderful doctor, fellow doctor Alan Mangan said. She has been a stalwart of palliative care services in Whanganui.

"You could always ring her up and ask her for advice. We would have been very challenged a lot of the time without her."

She brought a spiritual aspect to her work that a lot of patients appreciated. Her input will be greatly missed, Mangan said.

Young Marion grew up in Africa, with missionary parents. She did her medical training in Zimbabwe, just after it gained independence.

"It was an exciting time. There was an atmosphere of reconciliation going on and Zimbabwe was rebuilding its health service."

She worked in a hospital on the border between Zimbabwe and Mozambique, "a place that you could actually do something useful". She was first a general medical officer, then specialised in caring for children.

While training in paediatrics at another hospital she met and married fellow clinician Guy Taylor. The two moved to the United Kingdom, where she continued training in paediatrics.

When they looked for somewhere to settle down, they chose Whanganui.

They had two young children when they moved. After some time Dr Nan da Silva asked Marion Taylor to help out at Te Waipuna Medical Centre.

"I said I didn't know anything about adult medicine, but she persuaded me and I worked there for 12 years."

While there she did GP training, and while doing that she treated people with end-stage cancers and realised there was a great gap in her knowledge.

"I had no idea how to even talk to them about end-of-life stuff."

She did a paper at Otago University and found there was "a whole world of palliative care". Dr Nick Thompson persuaded her to be on call at Hospice Whanganui.

Some peaceful and harmonious years followed, when the hospice had 50-60 patients at a time and she was mentored by Thompson and by Dr Jonathan Hartfield.

"We were all eager to learn. We just had a really nice working relationship."

Since then the number of patients at the hospice has grown to about 100, and there are new cancer medicines and higher expectations for care. Everything is more complicated.

"People are living longer with their end-stage cancers now. It has pros and cons. They live longer, with more disease burden."

The work stayed rewarding, and Taylor takes special satisfaction from making sure every junior doctor now gets a month's experience at hospice as part of their training.

"I'm hoping that continues into the future and has an impact on the way palliative care works in hospital."

Working in hospice is also extremely demanding.

"It's very intense. You can't do it without getting involved with patients and families. When the patient dies, you grieve with the family, over and over again."

Hospice staff have to pay great attention to looking after themselves, and their employers are becoming more aware of that need.

There's also a lot to learn from hospice.

"The number one lesson is: life is precious. Make the most of your life, do the things you want to do while you can."

Now that she's hung up her stethoscope, Taylor is not sure exactly what she will do. Yoga, meditation, music, dance and "heading for the hills" are all possibilities.

"Medicine takes up a lot of your life and it's nice to have a breather and an unstructured time for exploring some more creative things," she said.