I have found that my most meaningful hospice relationships were more transient interactions with patients; small reminders that even as the body is wearing down, that the spirit within isn’t gone. I can recall many instances of walking into a patient’s room to ask if they needed anything and getting a whip-like response to what they actually wanted. It served as a reminder to me that people don’t like being treated like they’re dying, but rather as the person they were and still are. I once brought a woman a cookie that she had requested, and as I went to leave the room, she shouted back to me that she wanted a second one. I chuckled to myself at this request and dutifully ran to find her another cookie, reminded that we all just need a little junk food sometimes.
My first ever experience with someone actively dying was in the fall, on my first visit to the inpatient unit. I worked the Friday evening shift, so about 7:30 that evening, one of the nurses asked me to hold a phone up to a patient’s ear so that they could receive a final blessing from their pastor. I was pretty nervous because the patient was barely conscious and truly looked on their deathbed. When the call concluded, I hung up the phone and my shift concluded shortly after. I distinctly remember driving back to my apartment that night just reflecting on how little pain the person seemed to be in at that moment, and I felt a sense of inner calm that I had never experience before.
I recently finished Being Mortal by Atul Gawande and was disappointed, stressed, and ultimately inspired by his work. I certainly felt that he opened my mind up to what we consider competent care, what constitutes a good life and many other essential concepts about aging and death. I feel compelled to mention how horrified I was that our services in this country seem to fail our elderly when it comes to healthcare, but really, life at large. There aren’t nearly enough dedicated social programs and communities to ensure that the elderly still feel like a crucial part of our culture, and it makes me disappointed because I realize there are no easy solutions to this pervasive issue. In a “live fast” and materialistic culture here in America, we fail to recognize that people don’t lose their value as they age, if anything their wisdom and grace needs to be more appreciated by all of us. As someone who did not grow up with grandparents or really around any elderly people in general, I was completely ignorant to a lot of what Gawande had to say in the early chapters of the book; but I pressed on in the book and really digested what he had to say, and have come to see how even I am affected by his thoughts.
It is easy for me to consider my reaction to death and the dying process at the beginning of the year and laugh at how inexperienced I really was compared to today. I think a good portion of it was just having never been around anyone who was actively dying. Once I got over that inexperience, I began to see that the people weren’t scary or fundamentally different, just their bodies. I think the comfort I feel also presents itself as a genuine maturity I have, in both classwork and my future in the medical profession. I truly can see myself working with an older population and understanding the nuances that are considered the challenges of the population. I have studied the physiology of aging in some of my classes this year, and I am fascinated with how it works in reality, and I feel a pull to work in that sort of area to treat the aging process with commitment to do no harm.
My hospice work has deeply changed how I think about service to humanity. I used to associate volunteering and service with simpler tasks like cleaning parks, food drives, and other assorted tasks that didn’t necessarily involve building any sort of human relationship with people you are trying to help. I found that through this program, not just my time in the inpatient unit, but also my experiences with Pastor Alan and peers during the meetings led me to really redefine what service and vocation means to me. I remember learning that minister means servant, and while the word physician has no etymological root meaning service, I will always remind myself that it should mean that to me. My biggest privilege in life is going to be caring for patients; I want to always keep in mind that I serve them, no matter how challenging their health, personality, or diagnosis may be. I feel strongly that I can learn this throughout my entire life, striving each and every day to make someone better, even if that means a more peaceful death to an inevitable disease. I am incredibly blessed and thankful for the opportunity to be a part of the premed hospice program this past year in Pittsburgh. The lessons I’ve learned I will carry with me as long as I live and I hope to be able to apply what I’ve learned to other patients as soon as I begin medical school.