website: www.lesliepivan.net

Leslie Ivan MD, FRCS(C), FACS, former head of neurosurgery at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, and Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery, University of Ottawa is now Emeritus Professor at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa. Dr Ivan is a pioneer in the resuscitation of victims of fresh water drowning. Leslie Ivan was born in Hungary, educated in Debrecen, Budapest, and Vienna. During the Hungarian Revolution he fought against the Soviet Invasion and was awarded the Hungarian Freedom Fighter Memorial Medal and, in 2006, the Order of the Hungarian Republic. Reaching Canada as a refugee in 1957 he worked first at hospitals in Toronto and Saskatoon until 1967 when he moved to Ottawa where he still resides. Prior to and during his academic career, Leslie Ivan studied visual arts and creative writing. In addition to his medical writings he has published a collection of short stories under the pen name Paul Satori. Presently he is working on a novel and an autobiography.

Maureen Melrose RN (retired), is an operating room nurse by training. During her long nursing career, she has gained valuable insights into the fears and needs, both of patients on the edge of death and of their relatives. She has spent many years as a research assistant, editor and co-author with her husband Leslie Ivan. They have six children and eleven grandchildren.

Released by Pari Publishing

The Way We Die: Brain death, vegetative state, euthanasia and other end-of-life dilemmas

The discoveries of modern medicine have made a great change in our lives and in our understanding of death. More and more, the brain is known to be the focus of personality, and now of life itself. Unconsciousness, life support, organ transplants, near-death experiences, extended life support and the care of the dying are among the important medical and ethical issues surrounding death and dying that are discussed in The Way We Die.

Selected publications

Inside the Soap Bubble

Xlibris, New Jersey, 1998

The Pediatric Neurosurgical Patient: A cooperative approach

Warren H. Green Inc. St Louis Missouri, 1989 eds. L.P. Ivan, H Hugenholtz, M.E. Melrose

COMA: Physiopathology, Diagnosis and Management

Charles C. Thomas. Springfield Illinois; eds. L.P. Ivan and D.A. Bruce.

Leslie Ivan has also written chapters in 15 books and has published 68 papers.

Awards

Five award-winning stories were printed in the Canadian Doctor in 1974, 1975, 1976, 1978, and 1979