The death of a patient is a harsh reality as a student, it something that hits you when you least expected it and you never really how to deal with it. In most cases we tent to just dismiss it pretend like it didn’t affect us in any way which causes more harm in our psychological and emotional well being.
In my previous block in Tygerburg Hospital neurology I lost a patient that I had been working with for almost a week. My patient was from the medical ICU and was diagnosed of acute cerebrovascular accident and acute kidney injury. For the first few days my patient had been unstable and presented with weakness, large amount of secretions and decreased air entry which made his breathing difficult, however us out treatments commenced my patient became more stable and we went as far as mobilizing at the edge of bed with minimal assistance. The following morning I couldn’t see my patient early as I had an end of block exam so I could only see him in the afternoon. After the exam I went straight to him as my clinician had informed me that he was very chesty. I got there and his bed was surrounded by sisters performing CPR on him, a few minutes later the doctors arrived and tried to resuscitate him almost for 30 min and no response from him till they announce the time of death. The whole time I was there to witness this traumatic event and had to document on the physio notes on what had just happened. They explain the Couse of death and said he had died from pulmonary embolism. This affected me so much that I kept wondering if the outcome would have been different had I went and cleared his chest early.
The literature states that there are over 40 identified articles and studies that reveled the prevalence psychological distress and mental disorders in medical and health student such as anxiety and depression that are associated with hospital loss (.Dyrbye,Thomas & Shanafelt 2006).
this article also states that because of the above mentioned psychological distress problems student often result to finding a copying mechanism which are often alchol and substance abuse which leads to decrease in the over role performance. Instead of resorting to alcohol and substance abuse healthier ways to deal with mental health issues there are healthier ways such as seeking help and seeing a psychologist. Studies have shown that confiding in a friend may also reduce the stress and emotion burden one may suffer from following the loss of a patient.
In conclusion. I was really affected by the death of my patient and did not take it very well , I took me a long time for me to be able to talk about it with other people which I thought was very helpful at the end . I do feel like most students would benefit a lot if we had a session in class or a short course that would prepares us for a loss and healthier ways of dealing with a loss.
Reference list
Dyrbye, L., Thomas, M., & Shanafelt, T. (2006). Systematic Review of Depression, Anxiety, and Other Indicators of Psychological Distress Among U.S. and Canadian Medical Students. Academic Medicine, 81(4), 354-373.
3 thoughts on “Meaningful life and death”
Hello Mbalenhle
I really enjoyed reading your piece and I like the fact that you also included your clinical experience of losing a patient. I also had a similar experience and for me, it was also associated with some issues of losing a family member which made me feel worse. I started reading some articles on how to deal with losing a patient and dealing with death itself. You can read these articles which helped me get through losing a patient, this will also strengthen your piece on the literature that is based on losing and dealing with patient’s death as a student:
Kelly, E., & Nisker, J., (2010), Medical students’ first clinical experience of death. Medical education, vol.44, no.1, page 421-428, Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Powell, S., & Toms, J., (2014), Passing Away: An Exploratory Study into Physiotherapy Students’ Experiences of Patient Death whilst on Clinical Placement, Vol.2, no.1, page 108-121, The Higher education academy.
I also looked at your grammar, you did not do many mistakes but next time proofread your work as you left out a few words and some incorrect spelling.
Hi Mbali,
I could relate to your clinical experience, now I know how I can deal with the situation. I suggest that you fix some spelling and grammar errors. On this line, “In most cases we tent…” I think you meant to say, “tend” and here, ” however us out treatments…” I think you can replace, “us” with “as”. Lastly on this line, “They explain the Couse of death….”I think you meant to say, “cause” instead of “Couse”.
This is a very touching writing .You have included good literature on your blog but i would really like you to re-visit your writing piece when it comes to grammar .