Tag: death and dying

Celeste Arden Swain, MD Celeste Arden Swain, MD (1 Posts)

Resident Physician Contributing Writer

Kaiser Permanente, San Francisco


Celeste Arden Swain MD is a 4th year OB/GYN resident at Kaiser Permanente San Francisco. She attended Bowdoin College for her undergraduate degree and Drexel University College of Medicine for her medical degree. She will be starting a Minimally Invasive Gynecology Fellowship in Portland Oregon this summer. Celeste enjoys trail running, surfing, and spending time outside with her husband.




Early Palliative Care and End-of-Life Planning as a Primary Preventative Intervention During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The novel coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has drastically increased the number of critically ill and dying patients presenting for hospitalized management of dyspnea, acute respiratory failure and other serious complications. The emergence and spread of SARS-CoV-2 has created unprecedented demands on all avenues of inpatient hospitalist medicine. One of the many services in high demand includes palliative care, with increased need for complex end of life planning.

Witness

This elderly yet jolly gentleman answers our unending questions about his physical health, but it is his question to us that makes me pause. Do I have time for a poem? This busy clinic day, I stop reflecting on why his heart stopped beating and instead what motivates his heart to beat in the first place.   

Facing the Inevitable: A Resident Physician’s Perspective on the COVID-19 Pandemic

As I check in on my patients each morning, I wonder if some will unexpectedly decompensate and die over the coming weeks. I think about myself and my co-residents who are in the hospital all day swabbing patients for COVID-19 without adequate personal protective equipment. Many of my co-residents are on home isolation as a result of this exposure, waiting for their test results and praying that our government will step up and fund more mask production, or civilians will return the N95s they’ve hoarded, or the set of a TV medical drama will donate their props to us.

Treat Me If You Can: DNR versus Comfort Measures Only

Caffeine’s effect waned, stomachs rumbled, attention spans faded after rounding on nine acutely ill patients on university wards. It was nearing lunch. I was the senior resident, so I chose the order in which we saw patients. As we arrived at our last patient’s room, I snapped out of my under-caffeinated daze and realized I had made the rookie mistake of leaving our newest and sickest patient for last.

Carly Schmidt, MD Carly Schmidt, MD (2 Posts)

Resident Physician Contributing Writer

Warren Alpert Medical School


Carly is a pediatrics resident in Providence, RI at Brown University's Hasbro Children's Hospital. She attended University of Michigan followed by Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. She uses writing as a way to process experiences in residency and hopes to encourage others to explore narrative medicine as a form of therapy. In her free time she enjoys hiking with her husband and rescue pup, reading true crime novels, and playing "punishingly intricate" board games.