Gillian MacDougall is a recently retired Lothian ENT consultant; part of that role included telling patients that they have developed cancer and sometimes that it was incurable. She liaised closely with palliative care colleagues to ensure that patients with terminal head and neck cancer experienced the best death possible, but has always felt that we need the option of assisted dying to improve the experience of some. During her time as a junior doctor she was part of a head injuries team and has experience in asking bereaved families to consider organ donation. She has been a long term supporter of  a change in the law in Assisted Dying in the UK, and publicly raised the profile of the substantial minority of doctors who feel the same, as Secretary for Doctors for Assisted Suicide in Scotland. 

She has been the Clinical Director for the Lothian ENT department, Treasurer of ENT Scotland and has represented the East of Scotland on the ENTUK council. 

She is proud to live in Leith, having originated from the West!

Julie Lang was a physiotherapist for forty years, she returned to university in retirement to study English Literature and Medical Humanities.

Julie’s PhD thesis explores the role of memoir in end-of-life decision-making.

Charles Warlow is a retired professor of neurosurgery, living in Edinburgh, and a long-term supporter of assisted dying. 

Charles is considered by many to be one of the world's most influential neurologists through his pioneering research into stroke. His findings have transformed the medical response to stroke, and his research methodologies have been adopted world-wide. 

Jenny has worked as a Physiotherapist for nearly 30 years, predominantly in the community but with experience in hospital and outpatient settings. 

In addition to repeatedly encountering patients have expressed a calm and settled wish to die when nearing the end of life, Jenny has close personal experience of a difficult death, after her father died from MND. He too would have exrcised his choice at end of life had it been available.

Jenny would like patients to have access to continued patient centred, compassionate, evidence based, informed care at end of life, as well as in life, and for professionals to feel able to continue to support and ease their patients' journeys by providing autonomy, information, support and choice at the end of life.

John is a retired rural GP who spent 28 years as a partner in a small rural Practice in Wigtown, Dumfries and Galloway, and a further 10 years doing locums in rural practices all over Scotland.

John has experience handling of end of life care, both managed at home and in his local cottage hospital supported by MacMillan nurses, and has considerable experience with the use of opiates for control of pain, breathlessness and agitation and distress in last days and hours of life. He has witnessed patients including his own mother state that they had had enough and express a wish to receive medication to end their lives.

John believes that the current legal position around difficult end-of-life care decisions is ambiguous and leaves relatives, carers and medical practitioners open to possible serious criminal charges. He hopes the Assisted Dying Bill will remove legal jeopardy and aid medical professionals in acting with humanity and compassion when supporting patients at the end of life