When We Lose…
It’s inevitable. We will lose someone. We have lost family. We have lost friends. But somehow, in the world of DPC, losing a patient is quite different.
In DPC, we have time. We are built on relationships.
My patient passed away yesterday, and it hurts. A lot.
I had gotten acquainted with her when I was right out of residency, a young attending full of insecurity and imposter syndrome. I didn’t feel capable. And yet somehow, we figured out she had an autoimmune disease…which led to her final chapters of life over the next decade. As my own professional journey took me through a various path, she had to change PCPs.
When I opened my DPC practice 5 years ago, she found me and became my patient again. I knew her so well – her fears, her concerns, her challenges in life. Her family was so supportive. They wouldn’t give up on her. Everything that you could have on a problem list she had. Every challenge she faced.
If anyone could, she was the one who could beat the odds…. Until she couldn’t.
I thought she could. I thought that she could do it all. I had seen her do it. I had faith in her. And her mind was strong, but her body gave up.
In the world of DPC, losing a patient you have known for over a decade is extremely hard. Sometimes we know things about their lives that they’ve never told anyone. Our relationships are built in more intensity than 7-minute visits. We stand up for them. We advocate for them. We believe in them.
But then how do we grieve when we lose them? Grief is not something medicine teaches you. It teaches you to be strong, take a moment, and then go on to the next patient.
It doesn’t teach you how to deal with the tears or the sorrow. It doesn’t teach you how to respond when the family calls you to say they died…. or whether or not you should hold back the tears or let them flow.
But that is the essence of humanity, and it is the humanity that is allowed in DPC. We are allowed to be vulnerable. We can cry with our patients. We can hold their hands. We can give them hugs. We can be human.
And just like the families do, we figure out how to pick up the pieces. We remember our patients and their stories. We remember that it is a sacred honor to have had the chance to enter into the minds and hearts of our patients.
Being a doctor is more than learning science. It is a blend of spirituality, faith, hope, and a chance to change someone’s narrative in their world….
And for that chance, I will eternally be grateful.
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Thank you for this post. I just diagnosed a normally very healthy patient with extensive metastatic cancer last week and I have been so sad about it. I don’t recall being so affected by a cancer diagnosis in the past. I have found that I know my patients personally and am more invested in their health and lives with my DPC practice. DPC is also lonely and I don’t feel like I have many people that understand how and why I am grieving this with my patient. So I appreciate this post.