Bittersweet

In my quest to help my patients, I do my utmost to keep them alive and safe. Not a must for some patients.

So. What happened?

One of my good friends - and my patient - died tonight. Kübler-Ross was hovering over the room when I brought my daughter and her classmate to say farewell. For an instant we were wired together and humming, like two engines on the same circuit. I began to feel a lump in my throat. Okay, I whimpered. We cried.

There are doctors who are particularly skilled at not letting the suffering get to them. They seem impervious. I can't.

Susan Cain tells us that compassionate instinct - the way we humans are wired to respond to each other's troubles with little distinction between our own pain and the pain of others - is as much a part of us as the desire to breathe. A fundamental human nature. If someone pinches us or burns our skin, this activates the anterior cingulate region of the cortex - an unique part of our brain responsible for high-level tasks like paying tax. And our anterior cingulate region of the cortex activates in the same way when we see someone else get pinched or burned. This is what I have recently learned from Susan Caine's new book Bittersweet.

What does it mean? This implies that our impulse to connect and experience sadness of other beings sits in the same location known as anterior cingulate region of the cortex. Our need to breathe? Anterior cingulate region of the cortex. To digest food? That, too. To reproduce and protect our babies? Anterior cingulate region of the cortex again. Read: right at the heart of human existence.