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Practice Commentary
Donald Kollisch, MD
Arch Fam Med. 1993;2(7):761.
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| Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings. |
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Taking care of our patients when they are dying is never easy, but because of the intensity of the experience it is a time in which we learn and grow. The difficulties we face make sense both because the pain touches a deep spot within ourselves and because our therapeutic armamentarium is—by its nature and by the inevitability of death—inadequate. At some level we may want to have more control and competence, but it is likely that skill and serenity, as with the other major touchstones of the physician's art, are gained more through studied experience than instruction. A reference cited by this study indicated that physicians older than 50 years have more positive attitudes than their younger colleagues, and the physicians in this study whose thoughts and feelings are so well examined had an average age of 49 years, which is probably close enough for them to have gained that clinical maturity.
I found the results
. . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]
Author Affiliations
From the Department of Family Medicine, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
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