Dad had taken a turn for the worse, but my family was not ready to give up on him and consider end-of-life care. Nevertheless, choices had to be made. Would Dad be allowed to pass while in assisted living or have his life prolonged in a skilled-nursing facility? What kind of a doctor am I? When perceiving that a patient is dying, what type of physician neglects to intervene and actually promotes quality of death? What type of son would potentially hasten his father’s death by suggesting antibiotics be withheld? I was quickly silenced and ostracized by my family, destined to become the scapegoat if Dad passed before his time.
As my faith and hope waned through Dad’s progressive peripheral neuropathy and frequent urinary infections, my family seemed to have little use for my counsel. They seemingly accessed a higher power while I assumed a higher watch from a distance. Oddly, this manifested through my living in Arizona while Dad was dying in Illinois. Dad had preferred little attention be given to his demise, and my presence would have suggested that something was terribly wrong. I had to play it cool, but this likely came across as being cold and uncaring. Someone that others could readily point to and say, “The doctor should be doing more.”
Physicians are often the scapegoats for many of the ills in the world. Similarly, the POTUS gets all the blame for what is wrong with the United States. We generally receive more blame for what we do wrong than praise for what we do right. We have handlers who attempt to promote us as being better than who we are and patients who require us to be top-notch mind readers and miracle workers. No one treats us like we are Gods, but many perceive us to be God incarnate. We are often called to heal the terminally ill and raise Lazarus from the dead.
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