In the Company of Death; In Consortium Mortis

By Mark Ligorski#1. BeginningsJust like in superhero movies, there is always a back story. This is mine.After graduating medical school in 1981, I went to work at St. Vincent ’s Medical Center on Staten Island for the next two years, the first spent in rotating through the different areas of medicine and surgery and then a year of Internal Medicine. 100 hour work weeks were typical, with on call shifts every 3rd or 4th night.People stayed in hospital for weeks at a time; there were still wards with four to six patients. Intensive and cardiac care units were still pretty new. TheKaren Ann Quinlan case was settled just a few years before and there was no such thing asDo Not Resuscitate orAdvanced Directives. The first commercial edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves was published in 1973. Survivor ’s song “Eye of the Tiger” was number one that July.This was just beforeAIDS andMRSA.This was before managed care and none of us knew or paid attention to how much things cost.This was the world that I walked into, holding my white coat and stethoscope; talismans to keep me safe. I was clueless, frightened, and excited. I remember one of my first patients, a middle aged gentleman. I went in to introduce myself, like I was a waiter at Red Lobster, “Hi, I’m Mark, I’ll be your doctor today.” I asked him to call me Mark.He said, “Yes, Dr. Ligorski.”“No, call me Mark.”“Yes, Dr. Ligorski.”I began to understand that he needed this 20-somet...
Source: Pallimed: A Hospice and Palliative Medicine Blog - Category: Palliative Care Tags: advanced directives code status CPR ligorski respirator Source Type: blogs