Dealing with Death

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Dealing with Death

Death is a sensitive topic that most people find hard to cope with. Some professionals such as nursing, police officers, firefighters and doctors encounter death in the course of their work frequently. Therefore, it is imperative to ensure that these professionals are equipped with skills to help them cope with the issue. Besides, the seasoned ones can disclose useful insight on how they deal with the situation. The three questions that one should ask a doctor to learn how she copes with the issue of death and other life threatening situations: 1) how do you ensure that you disclose news of a terminal disease to a patient and their families? 2) Do you think that transplants are unethical? 3)  How do you relieve yourself from compassion fatigue while dealing with a terminally ill patient?

After conducting interview with a professional doctor the following transcribe was obtained.

Me: Good afternoon doctor, would you be kind enough to tell me how you feel when a patient dies?

Doctor: It is the most heartbreaking experience especially if you have known the patient for long. You cannot help but keep questioning if you could have done something to help them live longer.

Me: kindly enlighten me on how you deal with those emotions.

Doctor: there is little you can do other than give yourself time to recover emotionally. However, ensuring that you are busy at work or enjoying your hobby helps by distracting you from the loss.

Me: Thank you I am sure that certainly helps, doctor. Are transplant unethical according to your professional and personal values?

Doctor: Transplants are ethical as long as all the stipulated procedure is followed to the letter. However, the law is very clear, if any of the provision is violated, performing such a procedure is unethical. For example, if the recipient gives a cash reward to the donor the transplant would be unethical.

Me: Finally, doctor, how do you deal with compassion fatigue?

Doctor: I ensure that I do not get too personally involved to a patient. In case I do, I request another doctor to see the patient.

Me: Thank you for your time doctor, you have been helpful.

From the interview with the doctor, I learned how one should deal with death and other related issues. For example, I learned that breaking news of a terminal disease is a hard thing for a doctor to do since it takes almost as much toll on them as it does to the patients and their families(DeSpelder and Strickland 56).. Consequently, a doctor must develop ways of dealing with the stress that involves distrusting himself or herself by working or undertaking a hobby. However, time is the only thing that helps the doctor to recover fully.

This information was very useful, as it would help me to cope with a similar case where the patient dies or I have to take care of a terminally ill patient. I also learned that caring for a patient facing death is a challenging activity that may lead to compassion fatigue. Consequently, as a doctor one should avoid being too attached to the patient. Additionally, if the doctor is attached too much and it seems like it will affect him in dispensing his services then he should request another doctor to be assigned to the patient. Finally, I leaned that doctors should ensure that the right procedure is carried out to avoid a transplant becoming unethical.

In conclusion, the information I learned related to the information contained in the course book. For example, the book outlines the procedure to follow when carrying out a transplant to ensure that the entire process is ethical. Therefore, the information gathered from the interview was correlated with the information found in the course book.

Work Cited

DeSpelder, Lynne Ann and Albert Lee Strickland. The Last Dance. 10th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2015. Print.