Hanging Up My Stethoscope
When I found out my mother was dying back in 2015, I had been a doctor for 22 years. I was working as a hospice medical director at that time, in addition to taking care of patients admitted into the hospital. I was working the day my sister called me to share the news, and it still haunts me to this day--in my memory, it was all in super slow motion. It was like I could feel my heart and mind break incrementally at first, and then by large yawing chunks.
The next six months would change me, as grief changes all human beings. When my mother died, I felt something I’d honestly never felt before--I felt alone. While my brain desperately attempted to inform my heart that this was simply inaccurate, the heart has a hidden language of its own. I tried telling myself the things I tell the families of my dying patients; I tried praying; and I tried to comfort my family. While the measure of my success is up for debate, I DO remember getting into a knock-down drag-out fight in the middle of the street with one of my sisters over whether we should give my momma a laxative or not. That was smack dab in front of a porch full of cousins who had never seen me and my sisters so much as say “boo” to one another since we were kids. (Another thing I”ve learned over the years is that the death of a loved one makes people MAD, including me.)
We buried Momma in the late summer of 2015. I remember a robin had made a nest in one of the beautiful ferns she used to hang on her front porch. We used to sit out on the swing and quietly watch her build her nest as the hours, days, and weeks slipped by. Four eggs turned into four baby robins and I think momma and I were both lifted up by watching life go on around us even as her life spilled out before us. We got through the inevitable funeral and stumbled through the next things in front of us. As a family, that happened to be following up on a worrisome Xray finding one of my sisters had put off when mom got sick. Of course that finding turned out to be cancer, and we found ourselves gearing up for a fight we thought we could win.
Before mom had passed, I literally walked into the physician recruiter’s office in my home town hospital and laid my CV on his desk. With my hat in my hand, I asked for a job. I moved back home to help take care of my mother and then, heartbreakingly, my sister. When my sister started getting chemotherapy, I would plan my day to try and come sit with her. I’d do my rounds and try to spend lunch with her as they pumped her full of the poison that would go on to save her life. I cried alone in too many hidden stairwells and hallways to count and lost track of all my tears as the days wore on.
And then something happened.
I found myself with the opportunity to open up a Palliative Care program in my hometown hospital. I found a way to sublimate my grief. I moved forward with a singular purpose--help create something as a personal legacy to my mother. My mother taught me everything good in the world. She taught me about kindness. She taught me about unconditional love. She cultivated in me a sense of humanity and tenderness. She taught me to value life and love above all things and she taught me to give until it hurts a little bit. With a lot of help, the palliative care service line opened. It went on to be published in a leading national medical journal as a best practice in how to take care of the sickest and most vulnerable patients in our communities. I went on to become a Professor of Palliative Care and, to this day, have the great fortune of teaching medical students from across the state of Kentucky. In addition to the science, I also teach them about kindness. I try to teach them about tenderness and mindfulness--to remind them that medicine is not just about lab values and clinical data.
When God takes away one blessing, He sometimes puts another one in its place quite unexpectedly. Through an almost unbelievably lucky turn of events, I now find myself in the position to continue this good work. I am quite proud to announce I have formed a healthcare startup--Advanced Illness Management Services, LLC., and will be hanging up my stethoscope on February 1, 2019. After 25 years of practicing medicine, I will be stepping back from my clinical work to build out and run a national company helping hospitals across the United States take care of the sickest and most vulnerable patient populations across our communities. I’ll help train and teach other doctors on how to practice palliative medicine in ways that keep the patients and their families as happy and as comfortable as possible.
While I’ll keep my license and credentials active, this is, by far, the greatest thing I’ll ever attempt to do. I say that because this is so much greater than me. Like all mothers, my mother helped define my life. She taught me how to love the world around me and she taught me how to show it. She taught me that vulnerability is not weakness and that a hand up isn’t a hand out. She taught me all life is precious and love equally so. My goal is to carry her light and legacy forward to a broader audience.
So to all the people who have allowed me to take care of them or their families over the years--to all the people I’ve had the great fortune of meeting and knowing and practicing alongside over the last 25 years--thank you for helping make me not only the doctor I am today, but the man I am today. Thank you for the love and tears, and thank you for trusting me. I ask that you wish me well and lift me up in prayer as I move along and try to carry the light. Being a doctor the last 25 years has been a privilege--a personal blessing. It has shown me my place in the world around me and has revealed to me a sense of purpose.