When a Patient is Ready to Talk About Death, but a Medical Student is Not
The woman sitting across from me is eighty-one years old. I am sitting on her couch, not a straight-backed chair, and she is reclining on her sofa, not a hospital bed. I wear a sweater and leggings; I left my white coat at home. She offers me something to drink.
It is my first time doing a patient home visit. The purpose was to step outside the hospital snapshot and paint a fuller picture of a patient s life: her family and support network, any physical or socioeconomic barriers to health, and how illness has affected her life.
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