Imperative 11 To be authentically human in our encounters with patients and families. To be effective, I must be willing and able to throw off the protection of the white coat and be fully human at the bedside. So often I hear professionals say that they just wouldn’t know what to say to a patient […]
embracing our own humanity … Read More »
“In law school he had committed acts which had formerly seemed to him of great vileness and had inspired a feeling of self-loathing in him at the time he committed them; but subsequently, seeing that such acts were also committed by highly placed people and were not considered bad, he, without really thinking them good,
medicine … covenant or contract? Read More »
Imperative 12 To recognize and believe in the Supremacy of Spirit. Our personal religious convictions–or lack thereof–must never cloud our awe at the great miracle of the spiritual realities that come breaking forth as patients approach death. We must be prepared to help patients and families address the great spiritual questions of life: Who am
witnesses and partners … Read More »
A child who has to go through the woods in the dark will still be scared even if you prove to him a hundred times that there is no danger. He is not afraid of something specific that he could name, but rather he experiences in the dark the insecurity, the vulnerability, and the eeriness
what in fact is death? Read More »
… Grady et. al. provide an excellent summary of the case for not using opiates for chronic non-malignant pain … “A partial explanation of why we got to this point is that the lessons learned from the undertreatment of pain in patients with cancer were generalized to patients with chronic pain and no clear end
opioids for chronic pain … Read More »
… The NYT has an article that summarizes hospice use/cost trends. As is often the case, the accompanying comments provide a wonderful window into our community.
hospice use … and its cost … Read More »
“Health is not a commodity. Risk factors are not disease. Aging is not an illness. To fix a problem is easy, to sit with another suffering is hard. Doing all we can is not the same as doing what we should. Quality is more than metrics. Patients cannot see outside their pain, we cannot see
a measure of my days … Read More »
Gerard Manley Hopkins Not, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee; Not untwist — slack they may be — these last strands of man In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can; Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be. But ah, but O thou terrible,
Father Greg Boyle accompanies us on a journey in the lives of the gang members and their families he has spent his life with. His lived experience is a powerful antidote to our own ennui and confusion. This book is hard to read for very long at a time – there is so much deep,
tattoos on the heart … Read More »
“There is an infinitely better way to address the needs of people with serious illnesses [than physician-assisted suicide]. Our society should embrace what Pope John Paul II called “the way of love and true mercy”—a readiness to surround patients with love, support, and companionship, providing the assistance needed to ease their physical, emotional, and spiritual
