Scott Eberle, MD, and Rob Feraru

Part of the End-of-Life Conversations Series

The Final Crossing: Learning to Die in Order to Live

Join Commonweal’s Susan Braun and Commonweal Cancer Help Program alumnus Rob Feraru in a conversation with Scott Eberle, MD—a physician specializing in end-of-life care, who helped School of Lost Borders Founder Steven Foster at the end of his life in 2003 and is the author of The Final Crossing. As he has written in the book: “So now I am a physician who specializes in supporting life transitions. I am a hospice doctor who sits with the dying in their homes, and I am a rite-of-passage guide who sits with ‘the dying’ out in the desert.”

Listen (audio only)

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Scott Eberle, MD

Scott serves as medical director for Hospice of Petaluma in his hometown of Petaluma, California. Having first learned the science of medicine at U.C. San Francisco medical school, he then learned the art of medicine from countless people living and dying with AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s. He survived this difficult time by regularly seeking sanctuary, either in monasteries or in the natural world, completing over 150 retreats during a 15-year period. He recently ended a 16-year career as an an AIDS specialist so he could focus his energies on hospice work and “The Practice of Living and Dying” work he does with Meredith Little, co-founder of the School of Lost Borders.

Rob Feraru

Rob is an 11-year survivor of metastatic kidney cancer. Before taking early retirement in 2004, he worked for 25 years for the State of California, (7 years for the State Senate and 18 for the California Public Utilities Commission). He attended the Commonweal Cancer Help Program (in 2005) and the Practice of Living and Dying at the School of Lost Borders (in 2008). He lives in Berkeley.