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Rob A. Ruff is a hospital chaplain.

Learning to cope with the pandemic from palliative care patients 

Rob A. Ruff
Conditions
May 8, 2020

I’m a palliative care chaplain who provides spiritual support to patients with serious, life-changing, and for some, life-threatening, illnesses. A common story they tell is an illness, like a storm, blew them off their life’s map.  They find themselves lost in the unfamiliar territory of sickness. The future, once certain and promising, is now uncertain and ominous. Plans they’d made are on hold, possibly canceled. The specter of death looms …

Read more…

Learning to cope with the pandemic from palliative care patients 

Change the warfare metaphors when it comes to illness

Rob A. Ruff
Patient
April 12, 2013

The metaphor we use, almost universally, to describe the experience of illness is that of warfare.  Someone diagnosed with cancer is said to be “battling” cancer (as if the diagnosis itself implies a fight).  Family members often say that their hospitalized loved one is a “fighter” who “will never give up” or surrender.  Doctors refer to the most potent antibiotics as “big guns” that are prescribed to “kill the bugs” …

Read more…

Change the warfare metaphors when it comes to illness

How to get ready for death

Rob A. Ruff
Patient
February 12, 2012

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.
-Steve Jobs, …

Read more…

How to get ready for death

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  • Most Popular

  • Past Week

    • Politics and fear have replaced science in U.S. pain management [PODCAST]

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    • The controversy over Maintenance of Certification for grandfathered physicians

      Bernard Leo Remakus, MD | Physician
    • When side effects are actually a cry for help with medication costs

      Shuchita Gupta, MD | Physician
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      Timothy Lesaca, MD | Physician
    • The Schism of Time: Bridging the generational gap in the workplace

      Seleipiri Akobo, MD, MPH, MBA | Physician
  • Past 6 Months

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      Stephanie Waggel, MD | Policy
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      Corina Fratila, MD | Physician
    • The 9 laws of health care quality: Why metrics miss the point

      Constantine Ioannou, MD | Physician
    • Politics and fear have replaced science in U.S. pain management [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • From Singapore to Canada: a blueprint for primary care transformation

      Ivy Oandasan, MD | Policy
    • How board certification fuels the physician shortage crisis

      Brian Hudes, MD | Physician
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    • Insulin resistance is a survival mechanism, not a broken system [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
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      Ilana Ressler, MD | Physician
    • Whole-body MRI screening: a radiologist’s guide to preventive scans

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