Overbearing Family Members

I was a medical student on rotation in the medical ICU. There was a commotion in one of the rooms and all of the residents and students rushed to see what was going on. As expected, it was a code, and I dutifully joined in, taking my turn bagging the patient and doing chest compressions. I was taking advice from the other doctors and working on my technique. It was difficult to tell the age of the patient as all unit patients seemed to appear older than their actual age. This was especially true for a patient in full arrest, as in this case, but I just assumed she was middle aged.After about 30 minutes the code was called and time of death given. While there was a certain thrill and excitement in the action surrounding the resuscitation effort, I always experienced an empty feeling after an unsuccessful code. This time was no different, but the emptiness was greater because it was not an octogenarian who had lived a full life. Still, it was part of the job, and I needed to get used to it. Time and experience would render this aspect of medicine easier for me, and like everything else, I had to get through it.At that moment, my resident collected our team and said we needed to join the attending to tell the family. We entered the consult room to find a very calm looking man and woman, aged roughly in their mid forties. The attending began telling them, in a solemn voice, that we had tried everything we could, but there was nothing we could do. He said he was very sorry. It was a standard speech to tell someone that a loved one had passed on, and I had heard it a few times before.It was quiet for a moment until the silence was broken by the girl's father. "I don't understand, doctor. What is going on? What is the prognosis?"


The attending was at a slight loss for words, but he managed to answer the question, "Well, um, she's... she's dead."The father fell to his knees in despair, his wife beginning to sob uncontrollably. It struck me that they couldn't even fathom their daughter dying at the age of twenty four. It didn't even compute.Thankfully, my resident dragged me and the two other students on our team away from the horrific scene. We went to the residents' lounge and tried to gather ourselves so we could get back to work. I could barely contain the tears that threatened to overtake me, and my resident did his best to comfort me. It was one of the most awful scenes I have ever experienced.While I was able to put the episode behind me that day so that I could continue helping the living, it has stuck with me through the years. It happened 15 years ago, but it still affects me to this day. That day was a turning point in my medical career. While I still wanted to help people and make them well, I did not want to experience that type of scene again as part of my work duties. I realized that it would tear me apart over time, and that I would end up hating coming to work. This a was a very big learning experience which taught me more about what type of person I was, what I could handle and what would damage me. It is one of many experiences that we have in the "House of God" that helps shape us as people and guides us to career choices. This is one of the reasons, of many, that I chose to ultimately pursue radiology instead of primary care.