Did it have to be this way? Could we have better balanced the urgency of the situation with the humanity it required? In doing our jobs, did we have to dismiss the one person who entrusted us to help him?
I also think about how that night influenced me. How it shaped my approach to the patients who privilege me to care for them during their most vulnerable times. I wonder what came of the Davis family. That newborn daughter is learning to drive, the boys preparing for college. And I also wonder what it was John so urgently wanted to tell his wife that night. As, no doubt, does she.
For Mr. Davis died that night, his words forever lost. TH
Dr. Glasheen is associate professor of medicine at the University of Colorado at Denver, where he serves as director of the Hospital Medicine Program and the Hospitalist Training Program, and as associate program director of the Internal Medicine Residency Program.