Introduction
I can clearly remember the day he passed. I came to the room where he was being kept in isolation and just saw his family standing outside the door crying. His family’s faces were drenched in tears. I can clearly remember his wife say to his father “How are we going to survive now”. I remember thinking to myself “What do I do now”. Later that day I spoke to my clinician about my experience and asked her what is going to be done to assist these people. She then said “ That is not our job or problem, these people knew what condition this man was in and made no alternative arrangements.”
Discussion
Death effects the masses and no one can run away from it.(“Widows: Facing life after death of the family breadwinner”, 2018). A deeper sense of empathy and consideration needs to be directed towards what happens to the relatives of a deceased breadwinner.
According to (“Effects of Death of Breadwinner on Family”, 2018) death often causes the families of the breadwinner who has recently passed to become stressed emotionally and especially financially as the role is now transferred. This is often a foreign role to the family causing further psychological issues such as stress and frustration. According to (Halpern, 2003) empathy within the medical system is seen as a purely cognitive process, not one of emotion, which is contrasted with sympathy . The general attitude within the system is that experiencing emotion is unimportant for understanding what a patient is experiencing due to their condition.
I feel that there is no empathy within the current medial system from health care professionals for the relatives who have failed to make the necessary arrangements. There is no consideration of how the family is going to survive from here on out.
This is became evident to me in my most recent clinical experience where one of my patient passed away due to severe multi-drug resistant tuberculosis. At the time when I was doing my subjective assessment, specifically the social history I remember him talking about his financial situation I remember thinking it was a terrible situation, but I never took the time to think what exactly is going to happen to his family if he passes. Who is going to ensure that his family has food on their table and that his daughter goes to school. I feel these are the effects of death that aren’t considered among health professionals.
How to solve the issue at hand
I feel that us as health professionals needs to put more emphasis on empathizing with our patients who could potentially and assist them by referring them to the relevant professionals so that the effects of death can be minimized. As well as encourage communication among the patient and his/her family so that the necessary procedures are carried out. This can be difficult due to the fact that many cultures believe in avoiding the topic of death and dying. The reasons for avoidance regarding death and dying are the following: fear, cultural norms, religious beliefs, and/or family’s views of death as a taboo topic. Even though these challenges are present it is important to educate the patient and their family on the importance of this communication.(Keeley, 2016).
Clinical impact
This event has taught me that there is more to my profession than assisting someone the rehabilitation of their condition. It has taught me that my profession is also about empathy and that we as health care professionals need to show more empathy towards our patients and the family of the patient who is facing death. Through this experience I learnt that I myself as a physiotherapist have the duty to encourage communication about death and ensure that the patient and patients family have been connected to professionals that can assist them once the death has occurred. If this situation happens in the future I will now have the necessary knowledge to be able to handle the situation ethically.
Conclusion
I feel more importance needs to put on developing a deep sense of empathy for patients who could possibly be facing death. A moral shift needs to take place within the current medical system. A shift that encourages health care professionals to show more empathy towards their patients who are facing death and their families once they pass. As well as more emphasis needs to be placed on encouraging communication about death between the patient and their family. So that the necessary steps can be taken so that the effects of the death can be minimized.(Keeley, 2016).
References
- Effects of Death of Breadwinner on Family. (2018). Retrieved from https://prezi.com/jo5-xttztst_/effects-of-death-of-breadwinner-on-family/ When a death leads to debt. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.fin24.com/Debt/News/When-a-death-leads-to-debt-20150612
- Halpern, J. (2003). What is clinical empathy?. Journal Of General Internal Medicine, 18(8), 670-674. doi: 10.1046/j.1525-1497.2003.21017.x
- Keeley, M. (2016). Family Communication at the End of Life. Journal Of Family Communication, 16(3), 189-197. doi: 10.1080/15267431.2016.1181070
- Widows: Facing life after death of the family breadwinner. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.newtimes.co.rw/section/read/214669
3 thoughts on “Death, the inevitable ending (3688878)”
Hi Dylan.
Thank you for sharing your post and the topic you chose is something that definitely happens often in the different communities and is not always being touched on when it should be. I liked how you started the story by being open and blunt about the situation in one sentence and then continuing to explain it in more detail thereafter. Although I cannot relate to the topic as I have not experienced the death of a patient in my clinical block time. But the fact you are talking about death and how it made you realize that more people needs to become more sympathetic and show more emotion towards this topic and to the families of patients is commendable. Based on what we have learnt in class, death is not always spoken about and is sometimes seen as just “another topic”.
You mentioned that when doing the subjective assessment and listening to what the patient said about his terrible financial status – you realized you did not actually think about what would happen to the family if the patient passed away. But if you did think about it and take it into consideration, what do you think you would have done or said differently?
Some spelling errors noted
Line 6 – these*
Line 9- patients*
Line 11- were*
Line 15- going*
Please read up on “Family Communication at the End of Life” by Maureen P. Keeley (2017) as this can help you to go a bit more in depth with the topic and it gives different perspectives of why death should not be discussed to family members and the patient versus why it should be. Your piece was easy to follow and it touched on a bit of everything that you have experienced. Just maybe try and go a bit more in depth on the topic of “empathy” in which you have already touched on.
All the best.
Hi Dylan.
Thank you for sharing your essay regarding this topic. I enjoyed reading it and throughout the essay I felt as though I was experiencing what you did – the situation was well described and the events that occurred were well written. Unfortunately I could not personally relate to your essay and the topic, as I have not yet experienced such an incidence during clinical practice. That being said, I respect you for writing about this often unspoken topic, as I believe experiencing similar events in clinical practice is inevitable for us as health professionals, taking into account the type of settings we work in.
The content of the essay was structured around empathy towards patients, which definitely correlates with the topics we discuss during our Ethics module. You went into depth with this topic, which was very good.
In your essay you stated that you felt as though there is not much empathy towards these patients (patients facing death) in the current medical system. Were there specific events that occurred, that made you believe/experience this or how did you come about this belief of the medical system? Is there not perhaps any literature that could indicate trends in our current health care system where feelings of empathy towards patients were absent? You could even perhaps add why you believe this is absent in our current medical system for example: poor management of a government level, inadequate resources, poor ethical conduct of government health care workers etc.
At the end of the essay you stated that more emphases should be placed on developing a sense of empathy for patients who could possibly be facing depth – who exactly are you referring to here, us as physiotherapists or health care professionals in general. Also, how would you suggest this could be done exactly (development of a sense of emphases)? Seeing that we are all individuals with different morals, would this even be possible and viable?
If you possibly could develop this sense of empathy towards these patients, how would you apply this empathy in clinical practice? (For example would you try and be more understanding during subjective interviews or contact the Dr. or social worker to intervene)
The reason I am asking these above questions, is not for you to answer all of them, but rather to help you think of possible ways that you could elaborate your essay to be more detailed and specific, specifically regarding your goal of developing empathy in health care settings and towards specific patients.
You did touch all of these topics, but more detail and in-depth explanation could definitely help improve your essay.
Referencing:
You added a reference at the end of your essay, but you did not in-text reference. Perhaps look at a possible place where you can add this reference in the essay itself.
Possibly also look at references regarding our health system or cases of unfairness in our health system that could strengthen your argument.
Some grammar notes:
– Suggestions for sentence structure changes:
1. Sentence 3 is very long. Possibly consider adding a , after “passed” and perhaps consider breaking that sentence up, to rather form two sentences (stop the first one after “emotionally” and begin the new one with the topic regarding financial stress”).
2. In the sentence where you write about your subjective interview, add a , after “history”, as it is extra information you are adding into the sentence thus it should be in between two commas.
Spelling and writing errors:
Sentence 4: “this” – These
Sentence 6: “patient” – patients
Sentence 7: “where” – were
Sentence 8: “goin” – going
Sentence 10: “needs to put” – needs to be put
Overall I really enjoyed reading your essay. I felt that there was a good flow to the essay and it was easy to read. There are a few grammatical and spelling errors that you could address to improve your writing. I would also suggest elaborating your views on empathy somewhat, by taking a look at the questions I asked above and lastly perhaps also focus more on referencing as that can play a very important role in your essay.
Good essay, Well done!
Hi Dylan
Thanks for sharing this experience, I think it is very deep and powerful, as so many families are faced with this dilemma, not just in our country but all over the world.
There is a good flow to your writing and it definitely touches on content that we have covered in class.
I would suggest you use in text referencing and elaborate a bit more on the literature you found. Right now, you pose very good questions about the situation but try to use literature to find and support answers to your questions about the situation. A suggestion would be to read “Widows: Facing life after death of the family breadwinner” by Donah Mbabazi (2017), as it explores how family members can adapt after the passing of the family’s breadwinner and programs which are already in place for citizens/people in this predicament.
You described what was brought to your attention during the subjective assessment but that you did not think anymore about the situation afterwards, what would you do differently if you were ever presented with a situation like this again in the future?
Grammar & spelling errors noted:
6th line- either say “In a situation like this there is a flaw” or “In situations like these there are flaws”
7th line- medical
8th line- rather start a new paragraph with “In my most…”, as you are now discussing something else (i.e. a new idea)
9th line- patients
11th line- were
15th line-going
18th line- ‘placed’ may be a better word than ‘put’
last line- the possibility
Well done, this is a very interesting topic and very applicable to patients we may encounter in our profession.
All the best