By way of telling my story, this is an edited version of a talk I gave for the local palliative care team’s annual memorial service… We really need to talk more about death. Death matters. We all do it. It is an inevitable part of life. And yet we shroud it in euphemism, hushed secrecy, … More Memorial service speech – my story
Death, doctors and personal grief Hello and welcome. This site is intended to fill a gap in the www being a dedicated space for health professionals to reflect and explore our relationship with death and grief, particularly when personally affected by a death in the family. For my purposes here, I define family as including … More Welcome to DocGrief
Dealing with an autopsy report of a loved one as a doctor. Today marks 12 years since MJ died. A post on a GP Facebook page started a thread about discussing autopsy reports with next of kin when the deceased or the NOK is a regular patient. It sparked a few reflections about dealing with … More The autopsy report
25th December, 2016 Christmas means different things to different people. For Christians, it is, of course, a fundamentally important event spiritually. For those of other faiths, and the non-religious, Christmas has different connotations. You may or may not choose to celebrate it, but one thing is for sure, living in a place like an Australia, … More Christmas Reflections
SMACC conferences seem to be amazing melting pots of lived experience coupled with a passion for telling stories. SMACC is Social Media and Critical Care. Those involved have a busy presence on Twitter and a variety of blogs, and their international conferences sell out in moments, melting down the internet while they do! The background … More Dr Mike Winters- don’t forget A & B (reflecting on witnessing his grandfather’s cardiac arrest )
A lovely interview from Talks at Google with the widow of Paul Kalanithi.Lucy is an internist at Stanford, and Paul was a neurosurgeon with a wonderful turn of words who reflected on his life, cancer experience and death in the book “When breath becomes air” which is very much a worthy read. Lucy has previously … More Interview with Dr Lucy Kalanithi
Grief Suddenly. You are under water and the current is tossing you like seaweed. You are struggling to breathe; searching for the surface so you can grab air. You break through and breathe – relief – and then another wave comes from nowhere and knocks you back under. Your eyes and nose are full of … More Grief as an ocean
I have a theory about grief. I read so many books about death and grief in the first few years after MJ died, that I am not clear if this is a concept I have read clearly described, or a conglomeration of several ideas, or possibly even something I have come up with myself. If … More The grief cupboard
I am not a doctor. I am a Midwife and a Nurse. One of ‘those’ mature aged students whom is presumed to have years of experience in my chosen career just because of my age. Alison has asked me to write on her DocGrief page as a sort of therapy for me and possibly others, … More Life of Shane
I will never forget seeing her lifeless body. What had otherwise been a typical quiet Friday night for our family, merely a month out from Christmas 1995, was shattered by my mother’s desperate cry of anguish, bringing my father and myself from the opposite corners of our home. I still can’t bring myself to watch … More Reflections on losing a sister
Such a tragic title, and not necessarily representative of where I’m at, but it captures quite a bit. It’s the end of February, and half way between the two 10th anniversaries that dominate my calendar. The first a month ago, was the 10th anniversary of my husband’s death. Stephen was 34yo when he died of … More A decade of being a pregnant widow- Natalie’s story
New York Times article from Dr Lucy Kalanithi after the death of her husband Dr Paul Kalanithi from metastatic lung cancer. His writing will be soon published under her stewardship- “When Breath Becomes Air.”
