I’m in college, not premed, never planned on going into any of the sciences. I’m just curious, how do you people deal if a patient dies?
A few years ago, my father had to have open heart surgery. He’s perfectly fine now alhumdulillah but I was just thinking today, I don’t know why the thought occurred to me, God forbid what if he had died? The doctors wouldn’t even care; they did their best, it was his time etc etc, time to move on to the next patient, to go home to their families, own loved ones; whereas the families would grieve their entire lives…
Good question! But u know the real issue is not whether a doctor cares or not. If he's doing everything he possibly can to help his patients, then he can't be held responsible for how he feels after successful/unsuccessful treatment of a patient. I can tell u that most of them r conscientious people. Some are not.
I actually remember talking to a doctor about how they feel surrounded by all this suffering. After some discussion I said, "So, a doctor should be callous?" "He ought to....," he replied.
You see there's a difference between callousness and indifference/negligence.
I'm not a doctor. But I feel that having an emotional attachment with your patients may not be a good idea. But, you may have to assume a certain attitude before them. In any case, the real objective is to help patients in the best possible way.
well if it is just a thinking it comes in every bodys mnd once sum one near one or dear one is on bed well the doc have their type but most out of them really sincere to thier job so not to give a heavy thinking on this just have trust in GOD he will do n makie u find wat is required for u n wat u deserve so the crux is if u want to be treated well treat others well n u shall be repaid on to u.........................
Doctors learn to live with dying patients. I work with Docs and my cousin is also one and they are so darn busy with many cases and trying to learn more that they don’t get time to become attached. They are also trained not to become attached. Death only affects them in the early years notably the clinical years as a student where they get time to take on a specific case and when they’ve never experienced death before. After that its all examine, evaluate, prescribe and move onto the next bed. They care in the sense they want their decisions and protocols to work and make the patient better. Thats what their profession comes down to - clinical decisions to cure/slow down illness. Improving lives. When someone dies they don’t get time to stress over it (unless its negligence), they have too many other patients too see. Its just another statistic.
But care personally? No. They don’t spend that much time with patient’s anyway. In actual practice I’ve seen it with my own eyes. I lost my father last year and the Drs didn’t give a damn. The consultant tried to look worried and caring when speaking alone with me and my brother but it was so obvious she was acting. Only the reg looked concerned. It makes you sick to the bone. We made an official complaint about their conduct but thats another matter.
Like you said, the loss is ours not theirs. We have to grieve.
I am a doctor and in my 5 years of clinical experience have seen countless deaths.
The response of doctors varies,a minority do become emotionally involved with their patients and have sense of loss and grief,another small minority doesn’t care.Majority consider is a sad event but as i said,at the end of the day,we move on with our own lives,we want to spend time with our own loved ones(which we hardly find specially in the first few years).
However,i have also seen the reaction of deaths of various families to their loved ones and i have found that its the daughters who really care and grieve.I have seen even in my frineds whos fathers died prematurely,what i felt that just after a few days one feels that for son it was just something that was going to happen.There is no real sense of loss on their part.
And contrast is the behavior of females especially nurses towards the dead or dying patient’s family.Even while resuscitating many of them keep on laughing and joking and this is very irritating to me as well as to patients family.Have tried countless times to talk to them bout it but all seems to fall on deaf ears