In A Heartbreaking Open Letter, Doctor Explains Why He Checks Facebook Of His Dead Patients Before Notifying Their Parents

I can relate to this open letter better than I’d care to admit. I spent nearly 15 years in emergency medicine. Through those years I got hurt and saw horrible things. But with out a doubt in my mind the hardest part of the job was telling family their loved ones were gone. As they begged us to try something, anything but it was too late. People often ask what the worst thing I saw was. It’s never what people expect, they expect a tale of carnage. It was Christmas morning and a mans two small kids found him dead in his sleep. He had proposed to their mom just hours earlier and she was pregnant with their 3rd child. The agony in those faces and the pleading with us to try is something I will never be able to unsee or forget. You never know when your day will come.

I am a prior Marine, my wife is a medical professional, and I am surrounded by medical professionals from my wife's work. She used to work trauma-neuro and it always amazed me. As hardened of a Marine as I am with the loss of life that I had to deal with, my wife, the prior Army Medic, went back into a profession where so many are having the worst day of their lives and she and her co-workers thrive. Everyday they work to keep one more alive, everyday she comes home defeated because someone gave up before she could give them that one last assistance. But everyday she wakes up renewed and charged to help that next person that comes in needing her help. Its an absolute calling and I commend all medical professionals for the selfless works of heroism that they perform everyday. I am not worthy to be married to the angel that I am.

I couldn't make it through the whole post. As someone who has seriously considered taking their own life, this hit way to close to home, and now all I want to do is apologize to everyone in my life, and even to people I don't know personally, but may know me, for being so selfish and weak.

You try to detach yourself. It is just a job. They are just a job. But when faced with their death it’s like you got sucker punched. And there is a lingering heavy weight in your chest, some weeks and you shake it off others you will not completely shake off.

This doctor sounds very nice. Nearly all the doctors I know have numbed their feelings to such an extent in order to cope with the things they see, that they barely see live patients as people anymore. This one at least has compassion. I do find it strange though that he assumes when a young person dies that it is their own fault. Many people die through no fault of their own. That said, this was a window into the world we don’t always know. Thank you.