and others like you, are willing to do it. To share those pieces of yourself each time you must deliver such sad news.

You are an

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Yes, it is wearing. But things would be even worse if you weren't in there trying. Just because everything isn't treatable doesn't mean that medicine is a failure.

Try to think about one of your saves.

You are doing such important work.

Still, this has to be hard.

Would he be able to go on dialysis?

He is homeless, and without insurance. But now that he has been diagnosed with ESRD, he will receive state medical benefits, and he can get treatment.

I don't suppose the tax-haters ever considered the possibility that it would be a lot cheaper for the tax-payers in the long run if we had a public health insurance program for everybody, and he could have had his kidney ailment evaluated and treated ages ago, for a much lower cost.

Besides, they would say he's not worthy of state medical benefits, and dialysis.

Or I'll ignore the part about "do no harm", and mess them up.

'Worthy'... I'll take my patient, and a hundred others just like him, over any one of those sanctimonious, misanthropic right-wingers...

that they had a functioning brain, or a heart. Sadly they have neither.

Thank you for what you do everyday, Aristus.

The world needs more people like you.

sheshe

So far, I have never had to say to a patient: "I'm sorry; it's inoperable. There's nothing we can do."

I hope I never do. I've already lost a patient to lung cancer. But she was diagnosed at the hospital, and not by me.

Don't despair, my DU friends, or think I'm doing the same. Life is good, and I see success stories every day...