The grainy image of a doctor seeking a moment of solace outside a hospital after losing a young patient has travelled the globe, providing the public with a rare glimpse of the way doctors cope with and compartmentalise sorrow. It struck an immediate chord with me.
Last week, in view of half a dozen doctors and nurses and amid all the tangled, beeping paraphernalia of the intensive care unit, I pulled out, in other words, withdrew care, on a patient. I badly want to say that “we” pulled out on a patient, as this suggests a diffusion of responsibility, a team approach to the occupational reality of losing patients most weeks. But as everyone on the actual team knows there is one person who has the task of calling it a day. Last week that was me.
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