Hi, I am Dr. Death

I think one of the most obvious duty of a doctor that was NEVER stated in the job description is to break bad news to patients. Before I entered the clinical years of medicine, it never occurred to me that one day, I would be the one giving the patients bad news. And now, it has happened. Nothing could be worse than telling a patient that he or she has cancer, and only has a few more months to live.

And to add more "spice" into my life, what coincidence that I had to inform 2 of my patients that they have cancer on the same day! I felt like Dr. Death. In the morning, I sat down with a lovely patient, and broke the news to her that she has metastatic cancer. No matter how I tried to let the news out gently, I found it so difficult to even say the word "cancer." But I have no choice. I paused for a split second to wait for her reaction. And as expected, she broke down into tears. I felt myself welling up with tears too....but I told myself that I can't be crying with the patient... I need to be strong for her....to give her support. Not easy...especially when I can be rather emotional too.

Later in the afternoon, I thought my day was going to be better. Huh! Dream on! I discovered that another patient has an irregular shaped mass in her body. Sigh. I dreaded going through the whole process again. Anywho, I approached the patient. Luckily, her husband was with her. This patient admitted that she has thought whether she has cancer....and she was kind of mentally prepared for the bad news I broke to her. Unfortunately, as cancer is associated with death, she started to cry. Although I think her cancer is in the early stages and likely treatable, the general population would think that death is inevitable in a few years' or months' time.

Sigh. I felt like an evil person at the end of the day. I couldn't help but think that I had the Death Aura around me. I wondered, why in the world did I choose this profession.....I hate telling patients that they have cancer. I have done it many times since I started working...and you would think that it gets easier. Yeah rite.