The dying man.

Reflections from a palliative medicine doctor.

I’m a palliative medicine doctor at the moment. I’m partway through a four month rotation at the end of my second year of full time Medicine.

I saw a poorly man. He had terminal motor neurone’s disease and whilst at home had been deteriorating rapidly. It was only a few months prior that he was driving around, independent, content in his unknowingness.

When he was admitted onto the ward, I had a long chat with him — about his symptoms, his understanding of what was happening and an eventual communication of our joint plan.

The next day, I came in and flicked through the handover booklet — a series of pages that inform doctors about the patients in the building, where they were and general useful information to, well, hand over.

I wondered why they’d given me an old handover; I couldn’t see the name of my patient on my sheet and he’d only come in yesterday afternoon.

In a small font, at the bottom of the page, a note was written. It informed the staff that this patient had died overnight.

It was only a few hours between my conversation with him and his death.

My experience of motor neurones disease in the past has only been with my grandad’s illness and despite having a terminal diagnosis of a few months, he managed to fight for a few years.

In Islam, we’re encouraged to visit the graveyard to remember death frequently. The Latin phrase, ‘momento mori’ is one I recall often too.

It translates to ‘remember you must die.’

It might sound like my palliative medicine experience would be a numbing, uninspiring one but I am of the opposite opinion.

Through the very conscious remembrance of the finality of life, the small of everyday carries an ever greater weight.

The use of my hands to open a door, the green of the trees, the sound of the birds outside.

It’s something that goes amiss in people like myself normally, but the acknowledgement and appreciation for even the most basic of blessings is one of life’s better practices.

UMIR.