At 7pm I slung my bag over my shoulder and wheeled around to the door, ready to sign my patients over to the team of physicians on night duty, my 12 hours of managing complex care completed.
Then the intern’s pager went off: “Patient in room 1032 expired. Family distraught.”
I glanced at the intern. His resident left and he looked alarmed.
“Do you need help?” I asked tiredly.
“What do I have to do?”
“Console the family, pronounce his death, call the organ donation network, write a death note, and enter into the NYC Vital Statistics records.”
Blank stare.
I set my my bag down. “Come. This is what you do when your patient dies.”
We entered the patient’s room. The widow was surrounded by 3 nurses and 5 family members around her. A basin in her lap, a nephew fanning her, a son holding a cup of water.
The widow sat heaving at his bedside, clutching her husband’s arm.
He was still, mouth slack, teeth prominent, skin stretched tightly across his skull.
The love of her life.
We helped her through a 30-minute panic attack, trying to avoid calling a code on her.
I nudged the intern to the patient’s side where he listened ritualistically for an absent heartbeat, heard no breath sounds.
He hissed to me, “when do I announce it?”
Me, exhausted. “You don’t. You note it to yourself. Everyone knows he died.”
He nodded smartly.
We murmured condolences and left the widow and family in the capable hands of the nurses who had been bedside for the last 12 hours.
We wrote a death note: death was due to “cardiopulmonary arrest,” the patient had “absent corneal reflexes,” and “emotional support provided.”
I watched the intern call the organ donor network and answer routine questions about the patient’s medical condition and death.
He yawned, made mistakes, self-corrected.
And then I overheard him mumble to himself: “the neshama should have an aliya.”
• • •
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A frum woman and Torah leader has been sending me hundreds of dollars towards my neediest patients, trusting me to direct it as I see fit.
I made the unusual decision yesterday to use some of it towards “naturopathy.”
Hear me out!
You may have seen my despairing posts about a young patient with cervical cancer who fell prey to nonsense theories on alternative medicine to heal cancer
This arrived last night and I already finished it.
A must read for halachic people whose loved ones have a cancer diagnosis.
This covers so many topics in concise and readable language:
1. Cancer screenings: allowed, or actually mandatory? 2. Genetic cancer screening: allowed or mandatory? 3. Common cancer statistics and treatment modalities 4. Preventative surgeries or treatment: allowed or mandatory? 5. Halacha on medicine in general
6. Clinical trials: allowed or forbidden? When? What if you’re healthy and want to contribute to science? 7. Pain medicine: allowed, forbidden, or mandatory? 8. Palliative/hospice care 9. Goseis and end of life 10. DNR and DNI 11. Artificial nutrition 12. Healthcare proxies
If you condemn Israel for Palestinian suffering but you omit Hamas, you might just hate Jews.
If you fault Israel for Palestinian suffering but you omit Qatar’s role, you might just hate Jews.
If you condemn Palestinian suffering but you didn’t condemn the Hamas massacre, you might just hate Jews.
If you condemned Israel for blowing up a hospital and didn’t post a retraction and correction, you might just hate Jews.
If you didn’t condemn Islamic Jihad for their hospital bombing, you might just hate Jews.
If you provide armchair analysis on the most conflicted and contested region in the world without educating yourself on millennia of Jewish sufferings you might just hate Jews.