“Brevity and clarity requires skill and courage”

This month we are sitting down with Professor Peter Martin and fellow 4th year medical student Bronte Warner to talk about bearing witness to suffering as we move through our training. Dr Martin is a professor of Communication and End of Life Care at Deakin University and a Palliative Care Physician at Barwon Health and offers his career’s work on how to look after yourselves and your patients as you inevitably will have to face suffering, death and mortality in your careers. We cover:

Understanding ourselves

⚫️ What it can be like when a patient you care about dies

⚪️ Feeling out of your depth when witnessing suffering and being part of end of life discussions

⚫️ How people die matters

⚪️ How to express empathy and compassion in a way that is helpful for your patients

⚫️ How to process it: finding your way to honour the experience, engage in reflective practice, and let it go so you don’t take it home

Understanding our patients

⚪️ What matters to them when facing end of life care?

⚫️ The myriad of ways in which grief and complex grief can be expressed

⚪️ Asking patients about quality of life vs avoiding death at all costs?

⚫️ Prognostic discordance

⚪️ Using the words “death” and “dying”

⚫️ Do YOU have an Advanced Care Plan?

RESOURCES