We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Care of the Dying Doctor: On the Other End of the Stethoscope.
- Authors
Fromme, Erik; Billings, J. Andrew
- Abstract
The challenges of caring for a dying doctor reflect both common issues in helping the terminally ill and unique problems in working with a physician-patient. The dying doctor must deal with a familiar environment and set of problems from a radically different perspective and must negotiate overlapping and conflicting personal and professional roles. Some of the cardinal virtues of physicians—professional identity, expertise, perfectionism, selflessness, and stoicism—may pose both strengths and liabilities in the patient's role. The treating physicians may also encounter new strains in caring for a colleague. They must guard against both overinvolvement and underinvolvement, and, as with all dying persons, they must serve as a guide through unfamiliar territory for dying patient and family—a companion who is not afraid to listen to or explore the most upsetting matters, a person who can speak frankly when others may be ignoring "the horse on the dining room table." The case of Dr B, an internist dying of myelofibrosis and congestive heart failure, whose son is also a physician, offers the reader the opportunity to reflect on these challenges and to draw lessons about how to best care for fellow physicians at a time of great need. We suggest strategies for negotiating the patient-physician relationship when the patient is also a physician.
- Subjects
PHYSICIANS as patients; PHYSICIAN-patient relations; PATIENTS; TERMINALLY ill; MYELOFIBROSIS; MORTALITY
- Publication
JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association, 2003, Vol 290, Issue 15, p2048
- ISSN
0098-7484
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1001/jama.290.15.2048