Deaths

I've only been on the general medicine service for one week, but we've already had three people pass away. I've ruminated a lot on this subject, on helping patients achieve their desired end of life, on the "good" death in comparison to the technologically laden modern death, on the limitations of medicine. But simply, what is it like to know someone intimately days before they die? How easy it is to become business-like, methodical, filling out the paperwork, asking for an autopsy. But standing in the room of the recently deceased, my thoughts wander and race. What has this man seen? Where has he been? What memories he must have deep within his brain, a trove that may never be unlocked. I picture a vast network of connections, some cliche spiderweb, each node representing a person. How many connections just withered away with this man's passing? What races through their minds, these people who actually knew this patient, had meals with him, shared triumphs and tribulations with him? I only had a glimpse of this man's nature, perhaps only the skeleton that remained at the end of life, and how I must misjudge or mistake who he is. Now, his face looks ashen, and that is not the memory I think he would like me to have.