Most Meaningful Experience...

[punkedoutriffs]

I've been reading this thread in the Emergency Medicine Forum:

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=154841

and this one in the Palliative Care Forum:

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=763373

And started to wonder about meaningful experiences that doctors in other areas of medicine might have. If you have the time, could you maybe say what specialty you are in and write a story about one of your most meaningful experiences?

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[45408]

I'm in surgery, and the most moving experience was saving a neonate's life on his first day in this world (pre-term labor triggered by his perforation/volvulus/malrotation), and then walking over to pronounce a very elderly woman dead. I'd operated on her the weekend before, and she ultimately opted to go the hospice route with no further treatment once things started to go south. I'd talked to her <6 hours prior, and she told me that her awful death rattle cough "Bothered you more than it bothers me," and then smiled. This was around 3am at this point, and it was just a HOLY SH-T moment when the gravity of it all hit me. Definitely reminds you why you do it all.