Announcing death

Patient is not responding
No response to painful stimuli
No pupil reflex
Chest is not rising, no breath sound
No pulse, no heart beat
Time of death 6:28pm


What an honor and privilege it is as physician to announce the ending of a mortal human being.  You can feel that fragile lining between this earth and the spiritual world.

Life is too short to sit and let the clock tick on.   It is too short to be sad nor laden with your failures.  Leave the painful past behind

Time never stops nor returns.

Cheer up and enjoy this beautiful life, make every moment count.  Pursue your dreams, keep moving and shoot for the impossible.   

"Adam fell that men may be, men are, that they may have joy"

Loosing the last grandparent

At 3 am, my grandma passed away
The closest member of my family is more than 2000 miles away from me, and grandma is almost 10,000 miles away. I'm overtaken with grief and loneliness.  I wish I could hold  her hands and kiss her goodbye.
Grandma had a fall a few months ago, fractured her hip.  In the U.S, about 15-20% of patients die within one year of hip fracture. Taking into account that my grandma is almost 90 year old and lives in a third world country, the mortality risk is extremely high in her.  Despite the best effort of caring of her there, she had a pulmonary embolism (a blood blot in her vein in the leg that travels to the lungs and blocks the blood flow to the lungs). She was in life support for awhile, but her health degenerates slowly and its time for the family to let her go.
I remember Dr. Stern often taught that we, doctors, were not God, and we had to learn how to let our patients go in peace and dignity when it was their time to go. 
Still it is hard when you know you won't see them again in this life...

Last time with grandma, summer 2011