Grief

Of all the diseases doctors need to be afraid of, spontaneous fracture of an aging Littmann Cardiology II stethoscope is near the bottom of the list. Unless, that is, the stethoscope belongs to you who are seeing patients.

It was a busy Friday afternoon, with packed schedules including unit meeting and clinic, and many patients were coming in from the emergency room. This time, I thought I could feel my stomach tighten when I heard a painful yell of my stethoscope tubing, which was broken into two pieces. When I put my finger on the tubing, it felt as if I were examining a shoulder dislocation with a palpable gap.

Bleakness massed around me quickly, much faster than it had when a senior soccer player found out he had to hang up his boots. I paused and tried to count to ten but only got to two. I breathed in. And I breathed out. Then I breathed a huge sigh of relief. "A retired stethoscope shouldn't ruin my day," I told myself. A broken stethoscope is the psychological equivalent of milk teeth which are beginning to fall out. They simply signify, so to speak, a developmental milestone. My stethoscope is to step down after serving me (and my patients) for more than a decade.

With that in mind, I learned to make peace with the grief reaction while moving on to see my next patient.