'In 2020, I was involved in a terrible outcome'

In early November 2020, while working as a locum physician, I was involved in a very terrible and unexpected bad outcome. As an obstetrician, we don’t often experience devastating bad outcomes, but when we do, it can leave us reeling for months, and possibly even years. While the outcome itself was difficult to process, it felt especially unsurmountable to me given that it happened in a community that was unfamiliar to me, in a department that I was not regularly a part of, and it was the first unexpected bad outcome I had since finishing residency. At the time, I struggled immensely with the grief that accompanies such an event. The need to respect patient confidentiality and the boundaries of professionalism in the field of medicine made it almost impossible to find comfort and solace in my usual support systems. I was grateful to have the support of colleagues in the community in the immediate aftermath of the event. But even more so, I was fortunate that the family I was so fatefully intertwined with that night showed only gratitude for my efforts and kindness towards me despite the nightmare in which they found themselves. Read: Dr. Ginevra Mills: My tortuous journey to joy As it always does, time moved forward, I returned home from my locum, and found myself back into a life that was familiar, but nothing I recognized. I came away from that weekend locum wondering if I would ever be the same person that I was before living that experience. I can tell you now, already (or only) 15 months later, I am not the same and I never will be the person I was before that day. In my grief, I attempted to write about how I was feeling, but no number of words could fill the chasm that I felt growing within me. I had nightmares reliving the minutes and hours leading up to the fateful experience, I found myself going around in circles of “what ifs” and “if onlys.” And, I did manage to write an article here about how unnaturally we in medicine process grief and trauma, but it was not useful in dealing with the grief, it only helped me to put into words the difficulty I was having in finding ways to manage. I did all the right things: I reached out to my provincial physician support program, I accessed my therapist to help me through managing the pain and devastation I was feeling, and I tried to be kind to myself. I also did all the professional things I was expected to do, even though they were triggering and set me back on my road to recovery. Multiple quality assurance meetings, debriefings, and all the accompanying correspondence that went along with these necessary parts of our profession were harrowing but I participated out of a desire to cooperate and in good faith to ensure that any identifiable issues could be addressed. But through it all, I struggled with how inhumane I felt—how broken I was that my life so brutally collided with that of another person (other people) and that I was expected to walk away from them as if our shared experience didn’t just change my life forever. I was wrecked by the thought that my role in someone else’s life was nothing but devastating for them and there was nothing I could ever do to change it. And yet time marched on. Months passed—and I always counted them as they did—and although the rawness of the experience faded and I was able to allow the memories to blend into the background of my life, hardly a day passed when I didn’t think about the family inextricably weaved into my history. Soon it was almost the anniversary of the occasion and I longed for something; closure, acceptance, acknowledgement of something so momentous. In the beginning of this past November, I found myself standing in the greeting card isle of a locally owned store, attempting to choose the perfect card to send a family who, like me, were barreling towards the anniversary of an event that changed their lives like it did mine. I can confidently say that there is no card in existence that is up to the challenge of such a task. Once I settled on one, I constructed a simple thought to let them know that I think about them always and the time I spend crossing their path has never been forgotten. I opened a long ago closed envelope in my bag to take out the only piece of information I saved from that fateful weekend—their address. It was the most closure I could ever ask for. How could I expect a family to care for my wellbeing and grief while they also processed their own? I couldn’t. And, I feared that I was selfish in sending this small token of my own healing journey; I worried that in doing something to help myself move forward, I was causing more pain for someone else. But I did it anyway, and I accepted this as the book cover on this tragic event in my life. And so, time continued to pass. The holidays came and went, I started a new position after moving across the country, and I’ve been settling into a new life even with the past close behind. It was mid-February when, as I was returning home from a quick work trip in Vancouver, my husband told me that there was something in the mail for me—a nice card, he said. I never expected (although I secretly hoped for) a response from the family. But there it was, sitting on the counter in a thick envelope with their family name printed heavily across the top left corner. My heart skipped and jumped into my throat. I stared at the envelope for a long time before opening it. Inside was a card, complete with pictures of their whole family, and a beautifully handwritten note. In it they thanked me for my kindness in sending them a card, and for my role in their lives. They filled me in on little details of the past year, including findings from an autopsy, in case I didn’t hear (and I didn’t …), the admission that they think fondly of me when they remember their time in the hospital, and most excitedly, a revelation of new beginnings to come. I cried as I read the letter over and over again. I didn’t realize how much I wanted to hear from this family again—how much I needed it to finally feel a sense of peace with the whole situation. In that moment I was grateful that I took the risk in reaching out in kindness and thoughtfulness back to this family. Not only because it provided me with a feeling of contentment after so long, but because it demonstrated the true power of authenticity human connection, especially in places where we fear it doesn’t belong.

'In 2020, I was involved in a terrible outcome'

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