The 13 Deaths of Dr. Oosterhoff

Photographs by Jagoda Lasota

Dr. Menno Oosterhoff leaned forward in his living-room chair, took a sip from his coffee mug, and told me about the first time he ended a patient’s life.

She was 18 years old and had been diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder, an eating disorder, and autism. Despite years of treatment, she was still bedeviled by negative thoughts, and she told Oosterhoff, a specialist in child and adolescent psychiatry in the Netherlands, that she couldn’t stand any more suffering.