Dr. David Tribble

Upon finding out what I do for a living, people often say that they could never do this work, that it must be terribly depressing, and that I must be an unusual person to deal with death every day. The fact is, I deal with living every day.

 

There is more to living than survival. There is discovery of purpose where you might have thought there was none. There is mending of long-damaged relationships. There is finding comfort, and the strength to be comforting to others, even in profound infirmity.

 

In the thirty-three years since I graduated medical school, I have seen and participated in the alternative to what I do now: the persistent application of dehumanizing technology in patients for whom I knew the end of life was near, no matter what we did. 

 

The relief of symptoms allows those facing the end of their lives to deal with that end. In hospice and palliative medicine, I go back to treating patients instead of treating diseases, and that is not depressing at all.

 

Dr. David Tribble is Alive Hospice’s chief medical officer.