Help

Every time a doctor breaks bad news to the patient's family members, they go to pieces. From breast cancer to heart attack to motor vehicle crash, and each time, one can feel the family member’s heart almost palpably turning to flutter.

Faced with this common scene in hospital, what should a doctor do? Instead of telling them to let go and accept the diagnosis, I feel a need to give the family members something to do. It's not that they aren't in bad mood themselves – trust me, they are – but it doesn't mean that the family members aren't in a position to offer help to the patient.

On one such occasion, I received a crash call after my patient’s heart and breathing stopped. The diagnosis wasn't particularly difficult. The prognosis was. He didn't improve much and I realized that I was losing that patient. I was tempted to conclude, when his wife and children rushed to the hospital, that they arrived too late. I paused. I quickly gazed at the monitors. My patient's heart tracing wasn't flat yet. "Let's see what we can help your dad before saying bye to him," I changed my mind. I then handed over the Ambu bag to the sons and asked them to give their dad extra breaths. (Ambu bag, by the way, is a hand-held bag valve mask to provide breathing assistance.) In less than a blink of an eye, my patient's wife boomeranged back home to fetch the best attire for her beloved husband. All these, I know, did not save the life of our patient. But wait: the healing power for the family is enormous. They came and joined me to do the best they could to help their family member.

Some doctors have trouble with this. Actually, you shouldn't have been. The primary duty of a doctor is supposed to help the patient. If you ask me, helping the family to help the patient is a close runner-up. As my nurse friend asked me this morning if she could assist me to perform a bone marrow examination for her own dad, I nodded my head and let her join me to unravel the disease of a blood disorder.