‘What next’ can be the hardest conversation for a terminally ill patient and doctor | Ranjana Srivastava

We will have only ourselves to blame for the evaporation of humanity in medicine if we keep narrowing the role of doctors

For the short time I have known the patient, I have only seen him in bed. On a good day, he has sat up but my defining memory of him will be his sheer inability to go from bed to chair without gasping for breath, as intolerable to witness as it must be to bear. His usual doctor has run out of options. So it falls to my inpatient team to broach the subject of what next, a difficult conversation for any terminally ill patient no matter how well prepared.

How are you?" I ask.