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Our Most Recent Essay
When the Patient is my Mother
Last updated: May 11, 2009, 5:01 pm
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It’s a special challenge for a physician when a loved one is seriously ill.
All the education can never quite prepare a doctor for the experience. And, paradoxically, there is much to be learned from such a time.
All of us in the field of medicine are taught that when it comes to family or close friends, it is wise to recuse oneself from the role of healer. The myriad of competing emotions is well known to cloud judgment and potentially interfere with the best of intentions.
I’m facing such a challenge now as my mother contends with a very serious cancer. She’s been fighting it for several years, but now it has metastasized to her brain and she’s had several close brushes with death while she has spent the past month in the hospital where I work.
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