A lot to ask

• Published in: Annals of internal medicine Vol. 155; no. 5; p. 333
• Main Author: Glod, Susan A
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American College of Physicians 06-09-2011
• Subjects: Adult; Anecdotes as Topic; Caregivers - psychology; Family - psychology; Female; Humans; Long-Term Care - psychology; Lymphoma - therapy; Patient safety; Physician patient relationships; Physician-Patient Relations; Terminally Ill - psychology
• ISSN: 0003-4819; 1539-3704
• DOI: 10.7326/0003-4819-155-5-201109060-00014

Gold discusses how she felt being a doctor to a patient who asked for so little but couldn't give any of it. Her patient named Jane who have spent almost a quarter of her life with lymphoma told her that she wanted to go home, that she's tired of the sterility of the hospital, and she wanted to die in her own bed after weeks on a plastic mattress. Days passed, Jane was no better or worse, and there wasn't any hope of getting off the ventilator so she couldn't go home. The social worker found a long-term hospital near her home and arranged for an ambulance to pick her up. She realized that she had not done nothing to help Jane when she went back to see the latter on the morning she left the hospital, but Jane turned her head away from her with tears in her eyes.