Radical Humility by Rebekah Modrak

Author:Rebekah Modrak
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Belt Publishing
Published: 2021-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Here’s what happened with Ahmad’s family. After we heard about their outburst in the waiting room, complete with broken furniture, not only did we not think about criminal charges, we immediately realized, “That poor family thought he had only nosebleeds. How could they reconcile nosebleeds with his death?” So we asked them back in order to explain, even before we had the autopsy results. We took security precautions and arranged for Ahmad’s five physicians to be present and prepared to walk the family through the clinical details. The family did what many do: without warning, they brought a lawyer with them, which was fine. It is not uncommon that a patient or family feels the need to even the playing field. As it turned out, I was grateful they did.

The first hour was pretty rocky. One member of the family, just beside himself, was so furious that he lashed out at all of us. The family’s lawyer intervened: “Stop!” he said firmly. “Do you realize there’s not another hospital in the country that would do what they’re doing today? Show some respect and let them explain.”

Five physicians all deeply affected by their inability to prevent this young man’s death, most with tears in their eyes, took their turns and chronologically walked the family through what they did, why they did it, the autopsy results, and why Ahmad died. Strictly speaking, they weren’t apologetic because they hadn’t done anything wrong at all. They had inherited this problem that had been brewing in Ahmad’s lungs for months. But they were unguardedly empathetic. By the end of the explanations, everyone was crying, and the family impulsively started hugging the doctors and consoling the physicians because they were so racked. They could reach that common humanity between them.

Even though there were no clinical errors in Ahmad’s care, we learned something valuable in talking to this family. The only person in the waiting room the day Ahmad died was a clerk with, as it turned out, a disparaging attitude toward Arabs and electronic games on her computer. While the intense life and death drama played out and a young man was dying, she played solitaire on her computer. How disrespectful! It was hard to listen to Ahmad’s family as they described their building rage around her insensitivity to one of life’s most profound dramas, but it was so valuable to view this profound moment through their eyes. Shortly after hearing their story, we removed games from computers. The clerk was ordered to undergo sensitivity training. We would never have known any of these things had we followed the deny and defend trajectory.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.