The Hospice experience in itself was unexpected but enlightening. Although I was not able to form a meaningful relationship with a Hospice patient due to scheduling circumstances, the prompts and meetings provided the framework to comprehend the faults within the indoctrinated mentality to use medicine as a means to prevent death. Doctors are trained to fight the infection, the life-threatening disease, and the incurable, but in the process, they are not able to offer the relief that the patient needs or wants. As an aspiring doctor, I had not realized that this constant uphill battle with terminally-ill patients would not avoid death but make that process more painful than it had to be. That is, good physicians are not those who are willing to fight until the end, but those who promote the human aspect of patients and prioritize the aspects of being alive, which is where palliative care inserts itself. Throughout my experience, the mission behind palliative care has emphasized not just the importance of engaging with patients as equals but how we also address death, both with patients and within ourselves. It was important for me to understand the events and learn the signs that lead up to death, rather than having the naive notion that death is sudden and unexpected. Additionally, the Hospice program has not only given me the space to address what death means to me but how to respond to the overwhelming emotions that may arise through self-care. It is a reasonable task to ask of oneself, but it is easily overlooked when we intend to lessen someone else’s suffering. Physicians are humans, too; we aren’t exempted from feeling lost, and I have come to comprehend that to be there for others, we need to first be compassionate for ourselves. Although I have never experienced death at a personal level, the Hospice experience has given me the toolset to navigate my emotions and others’ grief, how to healthily transcend to the next step, and never feel as if I could have done more. Death is inevitable for any ethnicity, age, parents, or child, and although it’s a fact of life, we as individuals can facilitate the transition and remove the fear that revolves around it. That said, death is permanent, but the pain that leads to our final destination is temporary. Although we may be consumed by it in our final moments, we do not have to be defined by pain. We can make a difference in someone’s life if we have the tools to ease each other’s pain as this experience has taught me.
My Hospice work has empowered me to continue the medical path I have set for myself and, if anything, reforge the medical path that perceives medicine as a weapon to fend off death. The insight I have gained over the last year gives me the incentive to embody what it means to be a good physician. I want to build trust with my future patients, be the one who commits to my patient’s journey, and not avoid realistic and difficult conversations, but fight for what they want and need, and not what I believe they need.