This year has completely changed my outlook on medicine and the role a doctor should play in healthcare. I had a unique experience in that I was on both sides of the medical world: both as a hospice volunteer and as a family member of a sick patient. Shortly after I had signed up for hospice, my mother had a regrowth of her brain tumor. She has glioblastoma, which is an extremely aggressive form of brain cancer with less than 5% survival rate past two years. Being a hospice volunteer and watching the “Being Mortal” documentary gave me a unique perspective on my mother’s battle. Did a doctor discuss all her options with her? Were doctors telling my parents the actual effectiveness of each treatment, in a way that my parents understood? Of course you want to hope and pray that your case is the miracle case that provides a happy outcome, but being in hospice helped me cope with the realization that my mom will most likely not get a miracle. It made me want to cherish the time I have left with her, however long that may be, instead of focusing on finding a way to overcome her diagnosis. I am so thankful for these lessons that hospice has given me.
The main takeaway from both of my experiences would probably be how important it is to be surrounded by people who care when you are sick. Many of my visits were in a hospice hospital, where patients go when their families cannot take care of them themselves. The patients I visited were so often lonely and desperate for some attention. One of my patients, Mr. Green was really feeling lonely. He was very nice, but a little confused and quiet. Then, the musical group from hospice came and sang with him. Instantly he brightened and started singing with them. It was a completely different person from who I had talked to before. He opened up about his childhood in choir, and his love of singing. Mr. Green reminded me that these patients are people, people who had fully and exciting lives, and who are now stuck in the role of patient. Mr. Green was still the same person he was before hospice, but he had nothing around him that gave him his personality, including his family. But when the musicians and I took a moment to connect with Mr. Green, we helped uncover that person he was before. Every time, he would talk about how that visit made his week, and he couldn’t wait for them to come again.
Beginning this program, and dealing with my mom’s illness, I was slightly worried that I would be driven away from the medical field as a future profession. That my frustration with my mothers’ doctors combined with helping the people that modern medicine has failed would make me lose my goal of becoming a doctor. However, the opposite occurred. I want to become a doctor that isn’t afraid to have the difficult conversations with patients. Hospice was important in showing me that being a doctor doesn’t always mean you get to be a savior. Being a doctor means doing whatever you can to give your patient the best option, even when it means that you have failed to save them. Accepting death as a prominent part of being a doctor is important, and learning that lesson before entering the field is crucial. I still want to heal people and improve the quality of their lives, but I now accept that making people comfortable in the end of their lives is equally as important.