As we run down the stairwell from the Medicine Intensive Care Unit (ICU) to one floor below, the attending physicians and our team of 12 ICU residents, interns, and me (the fourth year medical student) arrived at a chaotic scene. There was a surgeon doing chest compressions so vigorously, it seemed as though he could have touched the floor, through the patient and the bed, with each pump. There were respiratory techs managing her ventilator, there were nurses standing by to push medicines to revive her heart, and other nurses with the electric shocker near by. Patient’s husband was at her side, grasping tightly to her hand, and fighting the flood gate of tears that was ready to explode as if the dams are crumbling.
She was young... actually, not much older than I am. I am sure her life was clean, and she hadn't tried everything to destroy her body like many of our patients before they end up in our unit. She was dealt a pitiful lot. Her vice was one that she didn't ask for, or earned. It was a very rare kind of cancer that had spread all over her body. She was so young.
Just as we stopped compression and almost stopped all the meds, her heart got stabilized. A few minutes passed by before her heart rate started to show signs of the peculiar rhythm that we are too often familiar with before patients breathe their last. At that moment, as I tried to fight back the tears in my eyes, the following image was burned into my mind: there was silence in the room... There was nothing to be said... well, nothing can be said. The husband had his head buried in her neck, his cheek to her cheek, in their ‘essence’ saying the last goodbye... One dying heart and another left forever broken and crushed. I can't help myself; I don't know what to do...
Then, as cold and manner-of-fact as we came, we left the scene. The patient’s heart was still beating, but, not for long. I knew the Lord was taking her home.
I have seen at least a patient die every day or every other day since I been here. Other than doing the best we could to help patients maintain all of their vital functions, what else could we do to help them and their families transition into the next chapter of their lives? What do I do when I see the husband’s heart break and bled out right in front of me? Why were my feet so glued to the ground that they won’t move an inch even when my heart wanted to be next to his? How do we become compassionate for the patient and their loved ones? How do we not become a machine, an ‘artificial intelligence’ filled with medical knowledge and algorithms? How do we apply ourselves in ministering to God’s Beloved in their last moments? How do we deal with all the sadness and brokenness we see? How do we deal with the feeling of being inadequately prepared to respond to the broken heart?
2 comments:
Wow. I cannot imagine that there could be any other profession that experiences such high, highs and so very low, lows!
GREAT blog. George, first let me say I love you and miss you, and if the Lord leads you to IHI, I wish I could stay another year too to see some of your journey.
That said, I think the biggest issue I interact with is how to not just be an "employee." I read your comment, and I think how maybe one stranger's touch would communicate Christ's love in that time. But have I ever done that in that situation? No. EVERY time I disappoint myself (and, I'm sure, Christ).
My "professionalism" (a concept which too often is really just a synonym for "the behavior of our peers") demands that I fail to really help people's souls, because the culture of medicine dictates that everyone will do what the rest of your team did -- leave. To do anything else is too complicated, time-consuming, and messy. And the guy might not want to be touched right then!(at least, at that second he might not want it, but would he not appreciate it at some moment of reflection?) This is really called inertia, and it works against us, until like maybe Patch Adams, we get the inertia moving in the opposite direction. I say these things to encourage myself, as your scenario convicted me so much of my usual status (= "dead") quo.
Some people say the guiding question is "What WOULD Jesus do?" I disagree -- Jesus said the man who has the Spirit is as unpredictable as the wind, and He was certainly unpredictable in Scripture. The real question, as always, the question Jesus asked Himself, IS "What is the Father (and the Holy Spirit) doing in this situation?" He lives inside us and He can tell us, He can give us peace to take courage and break with our peers, or to walk out of the room with peace that the man in grief needs to be alone. It's one or the other, and since the Word says when we acknowledge Him He directs us, then I think we should go with what we sense God doing, and try to learn His ways progressively as we go along, as well.
Much love,
Tim Potter
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