Best Self Magazine

Finding Hope and Meaning at Life’s End: One Doctor’s Experience

Finding Hope and Meaning at Life's End: One Doctor's Experience by Christopher Kerr. Photograph of a man walking towards the end of a dock by Alessio Lin
Photograph by Alessio Lin

A Hospice doctor shares his experience witnessing the paradox of dying: patients on their death bed are often more emotionally and spiritually alive

Becoming a doctor is a process with a beginning, middle, and no end. One day, just when the young doctor thinks they have mastered the science of medicine, they will meet a patient who summons them to go beyond tending to the bodily needs in order to tend to the soul. This moment will hold a lesson in empathy the doctor will never forget, the first of many

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