As a doctor I couldn't cure Jane but could grant her dying wish

As a doctor I couldn't cure Jane but could grant her dying wish Even when conventional medicine can offer no more, a thoughtful deed can give patients something worth living for

I hated my first job as a junior doctor on the medical wards. The district general hospital was busy and understaffed. I often felt out of my depth, trying to look after so many elderly and frail patients and found it hard to approach the terrifying registrar who bullied me, or the consultant who told me to “pull myself together” when I cried in a meeting. The long, lonely ward rounds of each day merged into the next. I often wondered if I was actually making any difference at all, in between clerking patients, prescribing medications, inserting cannulas and certifying the dead.

One patient changed all that. Continue reading... The Guardian