I have been fortunate enough to see the same hospice patient for my entire time in this program. Vivian is a sweet woman that loves to talk, although her vascular dementia means that her conversations are often confusing to follow and she never remembers exactly who I am. Still, her face always lights up with a smile when I walk into the memory care ward to see her, and I think she’s grateful to have someone’s undivided attention for a while. I’m not sure who she thinks I am, maybe a relative that she doesn’t quite recognize, but she calls me “darling” and worries that she’s wasting my time and offers me tea even though she has no way to make me any. Over the course of this semester, my affection for her has grown far beyond what I ever expected it to be, which makes thinking about her inevitable death quite painful to me.
Being close to someone who I know has only a limited amount of time left can be deeply distressing, not only because I will lose her, but also because it causes me to reflect on my own mortality and the inevitability of death in general. As a consequence, I have spent a lot of time this semester thinking about what constitutes a good death. It’s an important thing to reflect on, both as a human being and as a future practitioner of medicine. I decided to become a part of this program because I believe that doctors have a moral obligation to learn how to discuss death with their patients in a respectful and responsible way. As a high schooler, I read “Being Mortal” by Atul Gawande, which made me think deeply about the way that America and its health system approaches death. It convinced me that we need to do more to ensure that quality of life takes precedence over quantity of life. Our reflection during this program have made me not only more comfortable thinking and talking about death, but also made me more deeply convinced that other pre-med students should participate in a similar program.
I have certainly grown as a result of participating in this program. One of the things that has been most instrumental to my growth has been the discussions I’ve had with the other people carpooling with me to the same facility to visit our patients. Our facility was further away than most, so we had a lot of time to talk about our patients. We learned from each other and helped each other process the emotions that visiting our patients sometimes stirred up. It demonstrated to me the need for strong support systems, particularly in professions where you have to encounter distressing circumstances on a daily basis. The ability to talk to other people who were going through the same thing that I was and who knew my patient, just like I knew theirs, made this hospice experience all the more effective.