Melanchonic. Madame. | 🗯️ | [+ A medical delimma]

Melanchonic. Madame.

Today I experienced something extremely difficult in the hospital. As soon as I left the building I felt like sharing what I had experienced combined with some pictures I took with this awesome model Annemieke in order to blow off some steam earlier this year. My story will be posted below. please take a close read.

The medical story

A 64-year-old male was admitted to our department in order to do some final examinations on thing to do to make him feel more comfortable with his already terminal cancer of the liver. Then last weekend something bad happened completely unexpectedly. In the morning blood tests on Saturday it appeared that his liver function dropped insanely fast. This made the patient lose consciousness and suddenly we were in a completely different situation that we had when admitting him. While in these final moments of this patients life, the family of the patient came to visit.
After a long talk with them, we had to almost defend our stance on the current medical situation. The family unanimously was trying to convince us to end the life of this now unconscious man without his proper consent.

Legally, we cant do anything even remotely like that. that is what we told them. This consequently turned into a verbal fight in which we were literally discussing the fact of killing a human being without any form of a proper euthanasia concent. There I stood. 4 years of education completely useless to me. This was what being a medical professional is really like. This is the reality. And in this reality, people do not always do the things that seems logical.

I overheard one of the family members talking to the patient's sister of the phone and I quote:
"They do not want to end his suffering, they just want to keep her here to make money out of him"
I went completely mad inside my head. This is not what we do here... We are trying, within the boundaries of the law, to provide the best possible care to those in need. This patient was completely comfortable and soaked in morphine to cancel out any suffering that could exist. I did, however, understand the message he was trying to convey. All the suffering of the past months, all the pain of last weekend, he just wanted everything to be over with.
I understand how weird it is to read this story combined with my photo's. This is, however, the way I keep my head clear in order to act the right way in these difficult medical situations.

Here are some more shots of my shoot with Annemieke. I hope this story did at least convey 10% of the emotions I experienced today.

As always, feedback is always appreciated! Thank you all for the previous tips!

And you know my main message: Emotions are there to be expressed, not to be suppressed and bottled up. I do photography in order to take my mind of the medical dilemma's I encounter during my medical internships.

Thi_js. Out.

Instagram: @thi_js
thi-js.com

Ps.
The patients and medical examples I have used, are changed ever so slightly to preserve patient privacy.