“Where there is love of humanity, there is love of the art.”
This quote from Dr. Moller’s talk really resonated with me as a relatively recent graduate of medical school.
In a thought-provoking exploration of impoverished patients struggles in the healthcare system at the end of life, an underlying theme was the importance of exposing training physicians to life as a poor and terminally ill patient. Nowadays, every medical school has managed to carve into an ever expanding curriculum a course on the “human side” of being a doctor; how to assemble body parts and physiologic processes into caring for a real live human being. Despite many strong programs, I suspect the vast majority of medical students leave school without the tools needed to truly care for the patients they will encounter in residency.
Exposing medical students and residents to palliative care in all settings and across all socioeconomic lines will only help to strengthen patient care.