On my first day of hospice volunteering, I was nervous. I really didn’t want to feel afraid because I knew death was a natural occurrence. I understood that everyone has to die, and if I truly wanted to be a doctor I might have to deal with death every day. I thought to be an effective doctor I would have to learn to remove my emotions from the experience entirely; otherwise, I would fail. Nonetheless, I was nervous.
My first task was to replace the water pitchers in each room. An obviously simple task to complete, but still I was uneasy. A small grey-haired lady was sleeping alone in the first room I walked in to. I tried to be as quiet as possible, but the crunch of the plastic cup must have awoken her. The next thing I knew her surprisingly bright eyes were staring at me. I think she tried to say something, so I smiled at her and said hello. She proceeded to smile this huge bright smile, and then slowly closed her eyes and went back to sleep. This moment was short, yet it made the world of difference for me. Here was a lady in hospice preparing for her last couple weeks of life, yet she nevertheless smiled. How could I be afraid of her or her death when she seemed so utterly calm?
When I came back the next week, the first thing I did was scan the list of current patients for her name, but sadly it wasn’t there. My heart dropped and my face crumbled. I felt the tears suddenly well up behind my eyes, but I quickly stopped myself. I was frustrated that I instantly became so sentimental about someone I had maybe interacted with for a minute. I tried to push these thoughts to the back of my mind and finish my shift.
Looking back on that experience now, I am no longer embarrassed for what I felt. Death may be commonplace, especially so in the hospice environment, but that does not require one to completely remove emotion from this job. I believe there are two extreme ends of the spectrum when discussing death. On one side, we become so emotional about death that we treat it like a monster under the bed and try to deny its existence in every way possible. Our current society definitely reflects this end of the spectrum. We use terms for death like “pass away” and seclude our dying to hospitals to avoid truly confronting it. Nobody is allowed to die just of old age anymore because every death certificate requires that a reason for death must exist outside of the natural decay of all things living. This mindset has lead even doctors to overestimate people’s final weeks and to fight every disease until the bitter end in an attempt to deny death’s existence. On the opposite end of the spectrum, we seek to be objective about death. To remove all emotion from this experience is not only foolish, but dangerous especially for someone in the medical field. Although a doctor must limit emotions to some degree to properly care for a patient, that does not mean that he or she must completely purge themselves of all emotion.
To refute either facet of death, emotional or rational, is impossible. I am so grateful for my experiences in hospice as they have taught me that to be an effective caretaker, one does not have to remove all emotion from the job, but instead confront each situation with both a sensible and sensitive mindset.