(Nov 6th 2013) I faced death today.
The death of a small baby. He was in respiratory distress. I’m an emergency physician and currently working in a very very remote area of Northern Quebec.
We had to resuscitate him, intubate and ventilate, do CPR, give him resuscitation meds.I was in an hostile environment, without my usual weapons to fight the war for life, against disease. In certain regions of the far north, we are almost helpless against serious diseases: no labs, no x-ray, no scans, just hands and stethoscopes. In addition to having just minimal tools, my patient was 200 miles from me and i was managing the case by phone. By chance, i was not alone, i had a great team of courageous and strong nurses practitioners. They worked hard for many hours, a little over 15, to try to save this fragile life. The trials of life , we must deal with eyes wide open, unwavering optimism and great humility .
Despite this event, I’m glad I came here. Many doctors fear these kind of situations and they avoid placing themselves in such conditions. Yes, we are afraid when we go out of our comfort zone when we confront a beast, especially the death of a young child, without our usual tools but we do what has to be done because our job is to try to save lives.
I regularly explain to my son that courage is not the absence of fear, it is the ability to face our fears and move forward anyway, to do the right thing. We will all fear at one time or another in our lives.
We always have a choice in these critical times : be terrified and paralyzed or be brave.The result is not important. The important is to have tried, to have given everything we could, to have done our best.
Whether we win or lose, if we gave everything, we have the right to stand.
Originally posted on Facebook, November 2013
Martin Pham Dinh 