They don’t deserve this.

How many times have you heard this before? They’re suffering, they don’t deserve this. They should just just be made comfortable.

What do you feel when you hear this? What do you think? What comes to mind?

Whenever I hear this, and I hear it quite often, I hear a cry for help. I hear moral distress. I hear something I need to explore further, and spend time providing support. Almost always, it’s said by a colleague in the hospital. Sometimes by a family member. But almost always by a colleague.

Whenever I hear this, I remind myself to pause and take a deep breath, and acknowledge the emotional toll of bearing witness or participating in a course that one feels should go differently. I remind myself not to dive into lecture mode or argue the implications of such a statement, but to float a bit with the humanity that’s just surfaced. I remind myself that maybe here, too, there is a need.