Death and Dying

[questionguy]

How do most of you deal with a patient that is dying--not talking about your average gomer but about a young person much like yourself who has a terminal disease. Faith/religion/cycle of life/don't deal with it/don't persoanalize it?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[The White Coat Investor]

I say "geez, that sucks." Shake my head. Try to be compassionate to the patient and the family (even if the next stop for the patient is jail,) and then I go home and live each day as if it is my last. Its worked well so far.

 

[willow212]

OP, interesting question, which probably doesn't get addressed as much as it should in our education.

I would agree with the above poster that it is good to be compassionate towards the patient/family. And since each person deals with these issues individually, you could try to assess what that patient's needs are by saying "do you have concerns about the future"? They will let you know whether they want to talk further about it, and you can assess if you are the right "couselor" or if the patient would benefit from other mental health resources - clergy, counselor, psychiatrist, etc.

For yourself, again, you will have an individual response, and can seek out whatever resources would be helpful for you.

It's hard that in medicine, we often don't have the time/energy/resources to deal with these things in an ideal way.

But it's nice to think about these things once in a while. Kudos to you for doing so.

 

[DoctorDoom]

Originally posted by questionguy
Faith/religion/cycle of life/don't deal with it/don't persoanalize it?

Probably a little of each, depending on how I feel and what kind of week it's been, and the degree of involvement I had with the patient. Tough though to do it regularly, I just try not to think of myself but think of the family, that way it's not as easy to be dismissive since you have to be attentive to someone else's pain, and yet gives me a certain distance since it is someone else and not me.

You'll find your own way, just don't depersonalize too often.