Life and Mortality

Death is probably one of the most difficult issues that I would personally feel uncomfortable dealing with. After reading Pauline Chen's Final Exam, her experience reassured me that death isn't something that one will get used to even after many years of experience in medicine. The words, "I'm sorry for your loss," may unintentionally lose its meaning after being used thousands of times, but the emotions surrounding the death of a patient is a new and different one for the doctor every time.

What interests me the most are the various ways doctors handle discussing death and coping with death afterward. Doctors enter medicine in order to save lives. It is hard for them to give up on a patient when they have entered a field to learn the skills that could possibly help people with their illnesses. Who wouldn't want a doctor that will not give up and will do everything in their power to keep their patient alive? Although I think all of us want this to be our doctor, doctors are humans too. They get fatigued, cry, and laugh. A quote from Pauline Chen's novel reads:

"To complete the initiation rite successfully, however, we need to learn to separate our emotional self from our scientific self; we must view this dead human body not as “one of us” but as “one of them,” a medical case to be understood but not embraced."

I have to disagree with Dr. Chen. Doctors need both their emotional and scientific selves together in order to remain human and humane. Dying want care in their last hours and doctors should be able to provide it. Doctors shouldn't take one look at a patient and see medical cases. They should see the patient as a human too.