One of the most meaningful Hospice relationships surprisingly did not occur in the hospital, but instead occurred while I was making Tuck-In calls to patients. Most Thursdays, I would make calls to patients and their family members to ensure that patients had enough supplies and support going into the weekend. Most of the time, patients would be quick to answer the questions I would ask, with a simple \u201cyes\u201d and \u201cI\u2019m fine.\u201d However, one particular day, a woman who was the primary caretaker for her father, gave an honest answer when I asked, \u201cHow are you doing today?\u201d She explained to me that she was having a hard time coming to terms with the reality of her father\u2019s forthcoming death. Furthermore, she expressed that it was difficult to leave her father\u2019s side because she didn\u2019t know when he would pass and she didn\u2019t want him to die without her being there. This caused disruption in her everyday life because she couldn\u2019t go to work and would barely leave to get a bite to eat. I couldn\u2019t exactly relate to her experience but I was glad I was able to provide a listening ear and words of encouragement.<\/p>\n
Being Mortal<\/em> by Atul Gawande is relevant to my experience because it directly addresses the acceptance of the reality of death, thus demonstrating the importance of hospice care. Rather than attempting to prolong life, health practitioners should accept death because it inevitable. This is not to say that we should stop creating medical innovations to increase human life spans, but we should not view death as a failure. Pertaining to my Tuck-In call experience, I believe that it is easy to have the same mindset and have a difficult time accepting death. However, as health practitioners, it is important to have courage. Atul Gawande describes courage as the strength to face what is to be feared or hoped.<\/p>\n Furthermore, an important skill that I believe physicians should have is being able to have conversations about death. By participating in Tuck-In calls, I believe that I have been able to develop better communication skills. One of our prompts, \u201cWe\u2019re Bad at Death\u201d, addresses communication about death with patients. The paper states that many physicians don\u2019t feel comfortable engaging in these delicate discussions. \u201cNearly 70 percent say they haven\u2019t been trained to do so, and about half say they often feel unsure of what to say when discussing terminal illness\u201d (Khullar, 2010). This program has shaped me to be a better physician because I get the opportunity to speak about death with patients and their families.<\/p>\n Before participating in this program, I never interacted with someone who was near death. The first time I volunteered, I had a difficult time communicating with patients because I pitied them and was afraid of saying the wrong thing. Surprisingly, most patients were in relatively high spirits and they were just happy to have someone to talk to. Furthermore, before volunteering, I had this belief that hospice was a depressing place but I found that it is the exact opposite. It was clear that patients received the proper care, including emotional and social care. The nurses ensured that patients got everything they needed and I am glad that I got to be a part of each patient\u2019s hospice experience. All in all, my experience volunteering with West Penn has been eye-opening and transformative. Volunteering has cemented my desire to pursue a career as physician.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One of the most meaningful Hospice relationships surprisingly did not occur in the hospital, but instead occurred while I was making Tuck-In calls to patients. Most Thursdays, I would make calls to patients and their family members to ensure that patients had enough supplies and support going into the weekend. Most of the time, patients … Continue reading “How Hospice Has Changed Me”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"school":[9],"program_year":[27],"class_list":["post-783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hospice","school-u_pitt","program_year-27"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=783"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":867,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783\/revisions\/867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783"},{"taxonomy":"school","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/school?post=783"},{"taxonomy":"program_year","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program_year?post=783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}