Are You Bereaved? Allowing Yourself to Grieve a Patient

Listen to JCO's Art of Oncology article, "Are You Bereaved?" by Dr. Trisha Paul, who is an Assistant Professor in Pediatric Hematology/ Oncology and Palliative Care at University of Rochester Medical Center. The article is followed by an interview with Paul and host Dr. Mikkael Sekeres. Dr Paul reflects on a grieving father's question about her own bereavement.

TRANSCRIPT

Narrator: Are You Bereaved?, by Trisha Paul, MD, MFA

Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: Welcome back to JCO's Cancer Stories: The Art of Oncology. This ASCO podcast features intimate narratives and perspectives from authors exploring their experience in oncology. I'm your host, Mikkael Sekeres. I'm Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Hematology at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Miami. Joining us today is Trisha Paul, an Assistant Professor in Pediatric Hematology Oncology and Palliative Care at University of Rochester Medical Center to discuss her Journal of Clinical Oncology article, "Are You Bereaved?"

At the time of this recording, our guest has no disclosures.

Trisha, thank you so much for contributing this terrific essay to the Journal of Clinical Oncology and for joining us to discuss your article.

Dr. Trisha Paul: Thank you so much for having me today, Dr. Sekeres.

Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: So we agreed for everyone listening to call each other by first names, and then Dr. Paul just called me Dr. Sekeres.

Dr. Trisha Paul: Still adjusting to being an attending.

Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: That is fantastic.

Dr. Trisha Paul: Thank you so much for having me, Mikkael.

Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: That was great. Well, you already gave us a little bit of a hint. Can we start off by my asking you if you can tell us about yourself - where are you from - and walk us through your career thus far?

Dr. Trisha Paul: Sure. I'm originally from Ann Arbor, Michigan, born and raised there, and I completed my undergraduate medical school education at the University of Michigan. I proceeded to do a general pediatrics residency at the University of Minnesota and then went to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital for a combined fellowship in pediatric hematology oncology and hospice and palliative medicine.

What brought me into this area of medicine was early experiences as a high school student volunteering at a children's hospital in my hometown. And that's where I found myself in a playroom, spending time with children with cancer and their families. And these experiences of being with patients and families and getting to know them outside of their illnesses was really what brought me to wanting to be not only a pediatric oncologist, but also a palliative care physician who could care for patients holistically.

Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: Wow. So you were introduced to this field at a preternaturally young age.

Dr. Trisha Paul: Yes, it's been more than a decade that I've been aspiring to be a pediatric oncologist and a palliative care physician, and I feel fortunate to be there now.

Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: That's fantastic. And I should say, given your University of Michigan pedigree, 'Go Blue'.

Dr. Trisha Paul: Thank you. Go Blue!

Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: Although, at the time of this recording, Miami is undefeated in football, so, you know, go us.

In your essay, I really love how you draw us as readers into your story. You signed up to volunteer at a writing workshop for bereaved parents of children who died from cancer. Can you set the scene for us? Where did this take place? How many people attended? And why did you sign up for the workshop in the first place? I can imagine this would be an incredibly moving experience.

Dr. Trisha Paul: Yes. Day of Remembrance is an annual event hosted at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Many hospitals have similar events where we honor patients who have passed away and we invite their families back to campus to honor these patients. And I started my fellowship in 2021, and so we were still coming out of the pandemic. This workshop that I attended was the first time that I was having an opportunity to attend the annual Day of Remembrance. And at the time, I had completed my palliative care training, and I was wrapping up my pediatric oncology fellowship.

The annual Day of Remembrance this year was hosted at a convention center on the banks of the Mississippi River, nearby and next to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. And it was a large convention center that kind of spans the horizon. And it's one of those spaces where you go for medical conferences typically, and it was interesting to walk into this convention center space and all these conference rooms and instead see poster boards that are sharing the stories and the lives of all these children and adolescents who had died over the past several years.

One reason I think the timing of this event occurred for me was that I realized that I also knew several patients and families who might be in attendance at this event. I was several years into my fellowship at the time. And so I think the other reason I chose to volunteer at this event was I had spent a lot of time with patients and families whose child was approaching the end of their life, and I had kind of gotten to be with parents and siblings in that period of time. But what often happens for me as a palliative care physician and as an oncologist is the relationship is different after the child dies. And so for many of the patients I cared for as a palliative care physician, or as an oncologist, I wouldn't necessarily see these parents after the death of a child. There are some times where I've been able to see them at a memorial service, but otherwise we spend all this time with families leading up to a child's death. And often there's kind of this black box around them and their lives afterwards.

And so I found myself really wanting to better understand the experiences of families after a child's death, which is what led me to participate and volunteer in the annual Day of Remembrance event. I did not want to just attend, I wanted to be able to do something concrete and actionable with these families to learn more about their grief. And for me, as a writer, volunteering at the writing workshop with bereaved parents seemed like a perfect way for me to be able to spend time with them.

Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: Many of us as oncologists place boundaries between our interactions with patients, confining them to the workplace, but many do not. That you attended this workshop tells me that you may fall into the latter category. Was this a deliberate decision or something that evolved over time? And do you ever worry that erosion of such boundaries could contribute to burnout, or is it actually the opposite, that it reminds us of why we do what we do?

Dr. Trisha Paul: Yeah, I think this is a great question that I have been asking myself for years and that I anticipate spending the rest of my career wondering about and rediscovering for myself each time I have a patient and a family before me that I am exploring what I want those boundaries to look like or what I want those relationships to look like. I think that for me, my thinking about this has evolved even throughout the course of my training. And I think I've better understood that these are decisions that are made on a very personal level as well as decisions that have to be reassessed with each patient and with each family that we get to care for during this time. And so I think I'm always asking myself about, beyond being an oncologist and beyond being a person's palliative care physician, how do I want to care for them as another person?

Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: Really nicely said. Did you recognize any of the parents at the writing workshop you attended or at the larger conference when you were there?

Dr. Trisha Paul: I did.

Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: And what was that like, seeing them out of context?

Dr. Trisha Paul: In this specific situation, I think it was a little bit jarring in the sense that it was kind of this surprise, that especially these are patients I had cared for in the past several years, and so there was a little bit of a moment to recognize and place them in where we had seen each other before. And then there was this fleeting wonder about whether they also recognized me. Some of these are patients that I might have met while on service as a palliative care physician for a brief visit or an initial consultation. And so for some of those families that I knew, there was less longevity to the ways in which I had known them. And it was curious to wonder if they remembered me and then to wonder about that memory.

Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: Did any of them? Did any of them come up to you and say, "Oh, Dr. Paul, it's good to see you again," or, "Do you remember me?"

Dr. Trisha Paul: No, I did not have that happen.

Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: I think jarring is a really interesting word to use. A lot of our interactions are so contextual, and I find it difficult when I run into a patient or a family member and I'm outside of work and have to remind myself of, not so much who they are, but where they are in their treatment course. And sometimes you forget because it's out of the context of our clinic rooms.

Dr. Trisha Paul: Mm hmm. I think that's exactly right.

Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: The author and grieving father who led the workshop in your essay writes in your copy of his book that he thanks you for your work. The way you describe that and isolate that phrase in your essay is to the reader, I will use your word again, jarring. Why was that so jarring to you?

Dr. Trisha Paul: It definitely felt jarring when I read those words in my book. There is something about the word work and kind of the connotations of work that separate it from a humanity of caring. It feels a little bit like an obligation or a task or a livelihood.

Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: You think of what we do as a calling?

Dr. Trisha Paul: I don't think the phrase of it being a calling resonates with me personally that much. But it is more than just a thing I do. I think that's the problem with work. I think it's undermining why a lot of us choose to do this. Which I think for many people, kind of this idea of a calling is how they think of it. I think the calling implies there's a lot more choice than I actually feel. Ever since some of the first patients and families that I met within this space, I understood that these are the people I wanted to spend the rest of my life caring for. And I guess that kind of sounds like a calling. But...

Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: I was not going to say it, but it sounds like a calling. You know that word, and I love how you reflect on semantics in this essay. The notion of a calling sounds so highfalutin and almost religious and as if we're being spoken to. But I don't know. I think you could define it as something that just feels right to you and something that you should be doing and that you fall into and you do not have as much deliberate choice in going into this field, but everything just feels right about it.

Dr. Trisha Paul: I think that's exactly it. So I think it's just that you do not really question- for people who choose to do this work and to be with these patients and families, a lot of us from the time we arrive at the realization that this is what we want to do, we don't find ourselves really questioning it in a concrete sense because we understand it. It makes sense to us.

Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: I think that's a great summary of that. It just makes sense to us.

Dr. Trisha Paul: I think it's a mysterious idea to so many other people who don't do this work. And that's part of why it's interesting to a lot of people who just respond and say, "Oh, I can't imagine how you do this."

Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: Well, it just feels as if we're contributing something so substantive to humanity by focusing on hematology, oncology, and particularly palliative care. I don't know about you, I do not know if you have children. I have certainly tried to impart to my children to do something meaningful, to do something that makes other people's lives better with whatever career they choose, because it's so meaningful not just to ourselves, but to other people.

Dr. Trisha Paul: Mm hmm.

Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: We are talking about semantics. In your essay, you reflect on the notion of bereavement. Should we, as medical caregivers, cop to being bereaved, or are we misappropriating a word that really wholly belongs to close family members and friends of a person with cancer?

Dr. Trisha Paul: Yes. And I think that this essay was me kind of struggling to wrap my mind around what this question means and kind of what my own reactions to this idea of what it would look like and feel like to call ourselves bereaved. And I don't have an answer to this question. I think it's a question that everyone in this work should consider and think about and what it means for them as an individual.

Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: Are there patients you have lost whom you think about even one, two, three years later on a regular basis?

Dr. Trisha Paul: Yes, I would definitely say so. I am early in my career, but I anticipate that that is kind of an essential way in which I do this work. It's part of my own practice, and it's dependent on each patient, but I find ways that I keep their legacy alive in my life.

Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: Yeah. I thought a lot about your essay since I first read it, and I think it's okay to say that we grieve the loss of our patients. I think that is a form of bereavement.

Dr. Trisha Paul: I think so too. I think that it was interesting to realize my own hesitation about specifically calling ourselves bereaved when we do, as clinicians, talk about grief and secondary grief and something about using the language of grief and grieving feels more appropriate and within our purview as clinicians. But something about specifically identifying as bereaved felt like a different step.

Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: It's closer, isn't it? I don't know, it feels like more of a personal relationship rather than a professional relationship to be bereaved.

Dr. Trisha Paul: And I think that that's simultaneously terrifying and empowering as a way of acknowledging what the loss of a patient can do to us and also honoring the affection we have for people we care for.

Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: I hope it's okay that we end on that phrase that you just said: It's both terrifying and empowering to admit to being bereaved and to feel that closeness to one of our patients.

It has been such a pleasure to have Trisha Paul, who is an Assistant Professor in Pediatric Hematology, Oncology, and Palliative Care at the University of Rochester Medical Center to discuss her essay, "Are You Bereaved?"

Trisha, thank you so much for submitting your article and for joining us today for this enlightening conversation.

Dr. Trisha Paul: Thank you so much.

Dr. Mikkael Sekeres: If you have enjoyed this episode, consider sharing it with a friend or colleague or leave us a review. Your feedback and support helps us continue to have these important conversations. If you are looking for more episodes and context, follow our show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen, and explore more from ASCO at asco.org/podcasts.

Until next time, this has been Mikkael Sekeres for Cancer Stories.

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Show notes: Like, share and subscribe so you never miss an episode and leave a rating or review. Guest Bio: Dr Trisha Paul is an Assistant Professor in Pediatric Hematology/ Oncology and Palliative Care at University of Rochester Medical Center.