While that is the most common sense of eulogy, it's not the only one. A eulogy is also any speech that highly praises someone or something - which is most commonly done at funerals, which is how the funeral association came about (also probably by association with an elegy, which is an etymologically unrelated word that refers to a Greek poem dedicated to someone who passed away).

In many romance languages, eulogy doesn't have the funeral connotation, only the high praise one - so the GP may be a native speaker of a romance language who didn't realize this meaning is less common in English.

Yes I think I was thinking more a paean or apology though not sure apology is used in that sense much nowadays - perhaps apologia is clearer. In praise of would be better, thanks will edit just now.