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| Paul Kalanithi with his daughter (image taken from here) |
Few weeks back, I heard about a young talented Neurosurgeon who was taken away by a metastatic lung cancer. He was a good writer and I happened to read his essays and blog. Being in one of the country where there is scarcity of resources, I know it’s not a big deal when one dies out of infection, malignancies or whatever. We could only blame our fate.
But, here is a man from Stanford University, who gave a live telecast of his life through the terminal illness, till his last breath - Paul Kalanithi. So I would like to share his blog here. I felt little pain after going through his essays. Being a doctor knowing everything from the pathology of disease process to the prognosis in every stage, he would have been in great trouble. Old proverb reminds, a little knowledge is dangerous; very true.
During the course of study, and till now, I have observed many people with terminal illness both in medical college and family and what I got to know is that, patients well literate who had various options to explore and know about the disease succumbs to the terminal illnesses sooner when compared to the illiterate people who are never bothered about it. Psychological factor plays a great role.
And here, Paul Kalanithi was so brave enough to deal with his illness and went through it, shared his experiences rather than finding his dark lonely corner, accepting the reality, raising all his doubts about existence to the readers making us feel his pain. After reading his essays, "Before I go" , "How long have I got left?" I could only empathize and now I know the importance of palliative care in the field of medicine.
