When death interrupts life

After we had a good cry came the cold requisite to "get things in order." We said our final good-byes just 2 hours ago, and we returned to the empty nuances of life: Fix the leaking faucet, eat dinner, do the dishes.

Working with patients who are sick and nearing the end of their lives can be part of our rhythm – monthly, weekly, or even daily. But for the patient and family, there is nothing rhythmic about it; death is a life event, perhaps the life event.

Quality of care can mean creating a temporal space of peace and honor, no matter the loss and however brief, that has a different tone from the rest of our day. It means never suggesting in word or deed that we are too busy to recognize the emptiness that the death will leave behind. It is understanding the initial thud that a palliative care/hospice referral makes on a loved-one’s soul. Even a novice physician or nurse should pause in recognition that though the hospital bed will be refilled and the hospital workload will continue, for families, nothing is ever quite the same.

Dr. Horton completed his residency in internal medicine and pediatrics at the University of Utah and Primary Children’s Medical Center, both in Salt Lake City, in July 2013, and joined the faculty there. He is sharing his new-career experiences with Hospitalist News.