Geriatrics: On Death and Grief

This morning we met with Dr. M (ethics professor) to discuss how we as doctors should help patients and their families deal with death and the grieving process. We have an essay due in two weeks in which we write about our own experiences with death and grief, and to start things off, Dr. M went around the room and asked us to describe experiences we've had throughout 3rd and 4th year in which a patient died. The stories we heard were all very interesting. Marcus described seeing a father shake his six-year-old son's body, still trying to wake the boy up after time of death had been called. Janet talked about seeing a SIDS baby that was brought to the ER too late. Corey told of how a friend of his was beaten to death. The stories went on and on. I was the last to get called on, and as I listened to each story, I tried to decide which case to talk about. I saw plenty of deaths in ICU, but none of them really stood out. In the end, the case for which I remembered almost every detail was the death of little AJ back in Corpus, and that was the story I talked about. I sounded very clinical when I was talking, but I told how AJ developed Pseudomonas sepsis after his first round of chemo for ALL, how his parents clung to each other and cried during the chest compressions, how his mother held his body and rocked him after he died, and how his many relatives waiting in the hallway mourned his death with the staff and chaplains comforting them. Dr. M commented that my summary was a very good one as I described everything that had happened in precise order, then asked me which hospital this took place in. "Driscoll," I said, and he agreed that Driscoll would have services like that for its patients and their families. I have to wonder, did the students who rotated through Cooks spend any time at the PICU? Maybe that's why Dr. M asked me where I did my rotation.

It seemed strange that throughout this discussion of death and dying, the most memorable cases we talked about revolved around the deaths of children and not the elderly. Dr. M said that he and Dr. K were trying to publish an article about learning about death and grief should be required in every geriatrics curriculum, and Janet wondered aloud why there wasn't such a requirement for any pediatric curriculums since children die, too, and the level of grief with the loss of a child is different from the loss of a parent. Dr. M asked if she would email him with her suggestion later, and she said she would. After Dr. M left, we all hung around and chatted until our next lecturer arrived. I told Corey and Danny about taking psych patients to the State Fair last year and described all the different fried foods they have (this year's special is fried Jelly Bellies), and then Anita interrupted to say the State Fair sucked. XP It's definitely too expensive; with the money spent there I could go to Six Flags.