I Make My Team Cry

(An excerpt from my memoir-in-progress)

The Hospice Medical Director role gave me an excuse to bring poetry into my work as a physician. I selected a poem to begin every weekly meeting, sometimes one of my own. One day I read a poem by Mark Doty, “The Embrace,” and I looked up to see that everyone was crying. There are few places where healthcare workers can share emotions of grief and worry over patients. A hospice team meeting is one of those places. I wrote a poem about that day.

I Make My Team Cry

So, say you’re 30 years old,
and you want to help people,
not by being a nurse
or occupational therapist.
You want to be a leader
and decide to be a doctor.
You map and take the steps.
Then you start to write again.
You discover that being a doctor
is a shadow for what you want,
which is to be a healer,

a crucible for pain.
Once it seemed so noble
to dedicate a decade
in training to be a shaman,
one with social acceptance,
an internist who knows enough
of HIV to accompany
James and Vincent and Sonia
to the border of the underworld
but not across the river.
You find out:

healers are wounded.
I’m starting the staff meeting
at the Hospice. I always begin
by reading a poem.
I need to treat myself.
Today I’m reading Mark Doty.
When I look up, I see
everyone is crying.
We regain our composure
as we meet the needs
for the consolation of grief.

This poem both consoles me and brings me to tears. I miss my team members. The hospice team is a unique interdisciplinary group. Physicians, nurses, chaplains, administrative team members, and nutritionists all sit and discuss the patient. Each team member speaks from their own expertise about the patient or the family caretakers. Not only are the patient and family supported, but the team members are supported by each other in the difficult decisions that need to be made.