#6 What, me grieve?

Jul 15, 2026

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Are you grieving? No?

Do you have a symptom that’s worrying you? Are you dealing with an illness that’s interfering with your life? Are you facing a test or a procedure the may be good news, or terribly bad?

If so, believe it or not, you’re grieving. And why is that part of my new book, “Healing Together”? This 3-part blog about grieving will try to answer that question.

Finishing up my first book about end-of-life issues, “Medical Care of the Soul (2000),” I never used the word “grieving” until I happened upon Bill Maher’s TV programs about living the last of life. Grieving? What in the world is that? I asked myself. Must be something that happens after I leave the room. I don’t remember any course on that in medical school, nor any mention during residency or fellowship. When a patient died, we sometimes came together as a team to review what could have been done better, and what we regretted. The term “grieving” never came up.

When does grieving begin? Why is it kept so secret from patients and families and – most tragically – healthcare providers?

Around 1980, El Camino Hospital in Mountain View put on a presentation about the ICU experience. The 3 invited “patients” who’d spent at least 3 months in ICU to recount their experiences. Most of the medical, nursing and auxiliary staff attended, it seemed like 200 souls. We were excited to receive these patients’ thanks for saving them.

Alas, all 3 thanked us for our efforts, but two of three said they could never forgive us for what we’d put them through. What? Good grief, all the effort, heart and soul we’d put into saving them, and this was our thanks? Crestfallen, the nursing department arranged a series of group meetings to deal with their hurt. We doctors stomped off to our offices and never again mentioned the subject. There was no “good grief” to be had, because we denied we’d been dealt a blow that would need tending.

Looking back, I realize what the subject really was: these patients were grieving for what they’d suffered and the capabilities they’d lost. I believe we healthcare providers were grieving for what we hadn’t been able to cure, the gratitude we’d failed to win, and our own individual wounds that had drawn us into the healing professions. Three books and 45 years of medical practice later, I contend that we are failing ourselves and our patients by denying our need to grieve.

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Forty-seven years of practice in nephrology, critical care and ethics consultation, working with countless cherished colleagues, have convinced me that we are all rising or sinking together on a boat in peril. I thought that the archetype of the “Wounded Healer” was just old Greek stuff. This half century in medicine, plus writing these books, have convinced me I was wrong. Yes, we may have come to our professions by a desire to help others, make a living, be respected. Or was it perhaps a “Calling”? What was it within us that was calling to be healed by this work? At the 55^th year reunion of my Northwestern University medical class I asked several medical students, “Yes, but what in you called you to this work?” Their looks seemed to respond, “Please pass the butter.”

At the end of a long day do you find yourself worried that “What you gave was not what was needed, and what was needed you didn’t have to give” (Norman Maclean, “A River Runs through It”)? And needed by whom? The “patient,” the family, the community? Yourself, your family when you come home depleted?

I’ve come to believe the facades between caregivers and patients are beyond artificial: these barriers of identities, roles and presumptions block true healing for all participants. The always compassionate nurse, the bustling therapist, the perfect physician and the ill-informed, dependent patient are all death to being soothed and heard. We are trapped behind the safety of our lab coats, unemotional, untouched, sterilized of our true feelings. How we long to sit on the bedside, show our despair and joy, share what in our lives led to the guidance we’re offering our “patients”.

Most of these stories come from my and other healthcare providers’ involvement with patients and families. Listen for that voice that called out from within us, perhaps even when we were children? Consider “Foreword, why this book?”, “A doc becomes a patient – the missed diagnosis”, “A week with the dark guys”, “A thousand blossoms”, “Where hearts meet”, “Dear John – the evolution of a diagnosis”, “Do I care?”, “Spirituality? Seattle 2003”, and “When God fails”. The last is for those times when we wonder, are we doing God’s work, or the Devil’s?

I thank you all for your courage to labor long in the depths of human experience.

Your comments, questions and personal experiences will be much appreciated at my blog. There I hope we can initiate a conversation that will carry on.

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Are you a friend or family member of someone dealing with an illness? Does your heart ache, trying to figure out what they need, how to enjoy your time with them as you did before they got all tied up in being a “patient”? What should you say? Where should you sit? How much time is appropriate?

As you deal with the medical providers, are you made to feel like a crucial member of the healthcare team? Or are you shut out by visiting hours, isolation precautions and everybody too busy to give you anything but medical-ese gobbledygook? Do you fear, as Norman Maclean expressed in “A River Runs through It,” that “What you gave was not what was needed, and what was needed you didn’t have to give”?

When your loved one goes home, they’ll get discharge instructions. What instructions will you get? What will you be offered to ease your pain?

Readers will notice that I often put the word patient in quotation marks. This is to remind myself and all of us that a “patient” is a person—not a case—and should be afforded the same courtesy, kindness, and consideration as any other human being. The same applies to family and friends. You are a big part off your loved one’s life, and living through the illness with them.

Part of my message is that the division between doctor (or any other medical professional) and patient is as artificial as a lab coat and a set of scrubs. All can be barriers to successful treatment. Even more, healthcare workers come to this busy-ness of illness with our own set of wounds. We come, unbeknownst, to find our own healing. You become our healers. Ask us what in our life experiences lead to our recommendations. Are we hurting? How can we go through this crisis as colleagues, not opponents?

Though you’re present in every story in this book, consider especially “Intro: comes the storm”, “A child will lead”, “Grieving: things not worth saying that we need to say”, “Chapter 3: a time to fight”, “A crossing”, “Where hearts meet”, “He took care of me”, “Wrapped in Love”, and my Dad’s final joke, “Death of a Salesman”.

When your loved one goes home, they’ll get discharge instructions. What instructions will you get? What will you be offered to ease your pain?

Your comments, questions and personal experiences will be much appreciated at my blog, where I hope to initiate a conversation with you.

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Are you currently a “patient”? Are you struggling with fitting that designation into living the life you planned to enjoy? I often put the word patient in quotation marks. This is to remind myself and all of us that as a “patient” you are first and foremost a person—not a case—and should be afforded the same courtesy, kindness, and value as any other human being.

You are the center of all 54 stories in “Healing Together.” Some may give you insight into how others have managed various stages of their illness, from first symptom to decisions around the last of life. Many of the stories emphasize the struggles facing your family and friends, and others may give you some insight into what’s motivating your healthcare providers. See especially “Intro: comes the storm”, “Heartbeats”, “A child will lead”, “The Blessing: A Cancer Support Group after 9/11”, “Chapter 3: a time to fight”, “Where hearts meet”, “To despair and back,” “Wrapped in Love”, and “Denise and Jerry: a fine life on dialysis.”

Fifty-five years of practice in nephrology, critical care and ethics consultation have convinced me that we are all rising or sinking together on a boat in peril. I hope this book will empower you and guide you to find your way through a hard time.

Your comments, questions and personal experiences will be much appreciated to initiate a conversation at my blog, by clicking the button below.

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