Dave Caesar: Patient’s last days should be important

At 11am, amidst all the usual hubbub – conversations between clinical staff and ­patients, equipment and stock being moved on creaky trolleys, family members coming and going with concerns over relatives – the nurse in charge for the department requested we observe a two-minute silence.

And we did, all of us. Staff, patients, family members, carers. You could hear a pin drop.

It allowed such a unique window of reflection that, having thought about the ­indescribable horror of trench warfare and all the subsequent deaths and injuries, physical and mental, that our servicemen and women and their families have endured in securing our and others’ freedom, all I was left with was the thought that we should do this more often. If nothing else, it ­allows you to remember what is important in your life, and your patients.

Just before we observed our moment of silence, I was discussing a patient with one of our excellent foundation year doctors. She had just assessed Edith, and was coming to summarise her findings and ask me some advice about what we should do next for her.

Edith is 102 years old. She was alive when the First World War broke out, and still lives in her own home with help from carers four times a day. This in itself is quite an achievement, and on this day she had been found by her bed, having had some difficulty in operating the mechanics of raising and lowering her bed. It didn’t seem like she had injured herself, or was particularly different to her normal self. In fact, the carer that called for the ambulance and brought her in mentioned that this happened quite frequently to Edith, and that often she just pulled her covers off the bed and slept on the floor.

“She says she feels fine and is really keen to go home,” my junior colleague tells me.