#497

I read this NY Times article with interest, as I think it gives a nice overview of the "humanism" or "biopsychosocial" movement growing in medical education. I was most struck by the caption under the photograph about a group of medical students meeting a patient for the first time who died 2 days later. I can't help but remember the patients I've met like that, especially the youngish father who died from liver cancer 4 days after I met him on rounds. I worked with a resident once who said that he remembered every patient of his who ever died. I do to, and I've banked more than a few on my times through colorectal surgery, cardiac care, adult oncology, and pediatric oncology. What's confusing to me about this humanism movement in medicine is that it teaches you to focus on the patient's experience, to play witness, but it does little to address your feelings about the relationship. Unlike myself, several of my classmates had never lived through a death in the family, or been to a funeral. How do you process feeling bad about the death of someone you just met? It's not like you can go home and talk about it. I guess it comes back to the notion of "meaning," a theme I am beginning to repeat in my career. While obviously too late for the patient, perhaps there is some comfort for their spirit, and for me, in knowing that their journey affected me, if only in inchoate ways.