Tammie

Tammie Quest, MD, came into town a couple of weeks ago. Tammie is an Emergency Room physician who teaches about how to notify survivors of a sudden death. The MDs who told us that Jeff had died never did. They, no "he" was actually awful. He showed us on a monitor the results of the MRI, a picture of Jeff's brain, and where he was bleeding and used all of this medical jargon to explain what was happening. We wanted to know if Jeff was going to be ok or not. We found out that he wasn't - that he was died -- after Jim asked the doctor point blank if what he was saying was that Jeff was brain dead. Then the doctor had the audacity to start talking about how we migt want to consider organ donation. How could we consider organ donation if we hadn't been told that Jeff was died?

Come to find out MDs are not taught anything about death notification. I feel that the least I can do after experiencing the incredible pain made worse but an MD completely unprepared and incapable of telling us that Jeff had died, is to help change the sittuation. To help make sure that they are trained. To minimize the damage that they can do to other families.

So two years ago, I met with an MD colleague/friend of mine at Strong, and a woman from the bereavement program at Lifetime Care, and we started planning an educational session for the MDs in the area as well as the community folks, including but not limited to health care personnel.

We chose Tammie to come in and do both. She was terrific. She spoke to 50 MDs from the ER at Strong at 8:00 a.m. -- 50 internists at RGH at noon and about 100 folks in the community that night.

I don't think that I have ever felt as much satisfaction as I did that day.

Telling a parent that their son/daughter has died has to be one of the worse aspects of a doctor's job. But like surgery, this can be taught and it must. And the fact that it is not is simply outrageous. So I am hoping to work with Tammie some more...like anything else...help take some baby steps in the right direction.