so there i was in the ward today... just now actually... and suddenly my fren noticed the doctor doing CPR in the cubicle in front of us and asked why not i go help out... cos' this actually wasn't the first time we helped out to do CPR... only thing was the previous time there was a specialist there, and there were no family members... and the guy was alredi confirmed dead when the dr asked us if we wanted to try out...
so well... since i'd done it b4 i went there and offered to help... anyway to cut the long story short... the guy died...
and this time a couple of minutes later the family arrived... i was ok with the guy dying... until the dr broke the news to the son and he burst into tears... and then it hit me... this guy just died... then all sorts of thoughts flooded my mind...
what struck me was that in spite of the family members being so emotional, we as the medical students and drs had to keep a straight face and the most we could do was say, "I'm sorry..."
as i drove to dinner i was complaining about many things... but the thing that struck me was... why can't we be sad? shouldn't we? aren't drs humans too?
well... not all of us are drs... but at the same time.. as christians... aren't we the spiritual drs of this world... do we feel sad whenever someone.. "spiritually dies"... or do we have any compassion or are we trying desperately to save the ppl around us?... as desperately as a medical student doing CPR thinking he can save the guy he's pumping...
have we become calloused and hard hearted.... forcing ourselves to "not be affected" by the sufferings of the people around us... or perhaps it is because we don't know what is "life" therefore we don't know when some one is "dead" or "dying"...
heh... come to think of it... i don't even know the guy's name... only know he's in for ESRF...
really tired today...
1 comment:
I posted this on your bro's blog. I was a medical officer in the A&E NUH, singapore:
"Of course we can be sad… I was overwhelmed to the point of bursting into tears (months ago) when I saw an old granny coming to the A&E to view her 17-yr-old grandson’s body. He passed away suddenly without obvious cause at home, and we couldn’t revive him.
But there wasn’t room to show emotion in front of patient’s relatives and colleagues. As medical professionals we are expected to show a strong front. Doesn’t mean we don’t feel the intensity of emotions but somehow we need to keep a distance as well.
Mourn awhile (wer *are* human after all too), on our own, and we move on."
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