An unexpected journey into aged & palliative care

Albany wind farm

This post is a year overdue. If I were to have written this in April 2015, the title would have been “The tale of two deaths” where I would have reflected upon the peaceful, managed and expected passing of a 93-year-old aged care patient contrasted with the tragic accidental death of a 19-year-old patient whom I’d seen only a week earlier.

But what I’ve learnt is that tragic accidents are random, unexpected and do not happen often. More importantly I have been involved in the end-of life care of several patients since then, that have taught me a great deal about palliative care medicine, the value of open and frank conversations with family and some of the myths surrounding the management of death.

This is also a story of my maturity through being stretched and learning that the part of medicine that I ran away from the most has…