The importance of palliative care in surgery
Even as a child, I noticed that many people, especially my Depression-era grandmother, feared aging and the imminence of death. Death was no stranger to me growing up; I lost my then best friend, my Nano, and my uncle as a child, both traumatically. Yet, death was sad, but natural.
Because of this, I never understood our society’s stigma against dying, something that I’ve struggled with even in medical school. In …
