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My Grandparents’ Agonizing Deaths Taught Me to Become a Better Doctor
Medically reviewed by Margaret Cary, MD, MBA, MPH
A medical student’s mom told her that witnessing her grandfather’s agonizing death was a gift, implying that it would make her a better doctor. Maybe she was right.
Have you ever seen somebody die?
In my first year of medical school, this subject has yet to be broached in a meaningful way. As medical students, we are preparing to work in a field of literal life and death. But how do you handle death if you’ve never seen it?
Life is easier for us, we have all seen it, experienced it at least to a degree. But death is elusive. It’s shrouded in mystery. It’s painted in novels and movies and TV shows as difficult and beautiful.
It’s talked about in hushed, reverent tones of inevitability and acceptance. Even when it’s messy or unfair, the character at the end has some realization that there was good in it.
This raises some questions:
- Have we been unconsciously trained to expect this from our patients?
- Do we expect them to accept, to transcend into their greatest selves right at the moment of their hardest struggle?
