One of the most meaningful Hospice patient relationships that I had was with a patient I’ll call “Jackie.” She was one of the first patients that I met with when we began our visits last semester. What struck me about “Jackie” initially was that she appeared to be outwardly healthy and had a very lively personality. When I began hospice volunteering, I pictured bed-ridden patients who were visibly nearing the end of their life. “Jackie” was the complete opposite. When we knocked on her door each week, she was sitting in front of her TV with her aide watching a variety of shows. The conversation with “Jackie” always flowed, whether we were talking about her family, holidays, or our daily lives. She quickly became my favorite patient to visit, and I looked forward to my Hospice volunteering. After Winter Break, I received an email from the Hospice coordinator informing the volunteers that “Jackie” had passed away. I was devastated. Even though she was on Hospice with a terminal illness, she never gave that impression. The death seemed so shocking and sudden. I hadn’t gotten the chance to visit her in the new semester or at the end of the previous semester because she was out of the room on Sundays. I felt guilty for not seeing her more and sad that I wasn’t able to learn more about her life before she passed. I can only hope that our visits provided her with joy and comfort in her last months of life. She will forever change how I think about Hospice and viewing patients nearing the end of their lives. My experiences with “Jackie” reminded me that a patient is far more than their diagnosis and can still continue with their lives.
I have grown in the way that I have experienced death and the end-of-life process. I imagined it to be scarier with uncomfortable patients, and it is for some. However, every process is unique to the patient and contains a variety of experiences. Hospice volunteering allowed me to look into the current lives of the dying while attempting to understand their story. “Jackie” changed my limited viewpoint because of her liveliness and kindness until the end. Had I not encountered the various patients in Hospice that I spoke with, I wouldn’t understand the complexity of a life ending or just how important it is to understand the whole story of a patient, not just their disease.
In the same way that “Jackie” altered my perspective about terminal patients, the Being Mortal video also struck me. Patients will have more goals than just prolonging their life, and it is extremely important as a physician to understand these goals, adapting the treatment based on them. This was not something that Hospice volunteers bring up, but it did make me think about the future. These tough conversations can be difficult to initiate, but they are essential in understanding your patients. Through conversations with the Hospice patients, I learned how to effectively communicate with and understand the stories of others in a medical setting. Creating these strong patient connections makes a better physician. I intend to bring these lessons into my future career.