On the endangered species list: palliative care junior faculty.

“Hey, shouldn’t you be out there saving lives”? My friend Charlie (software engineer, Silicon Valley whiz-kid) set down his latte on my table at the coffee shop and sat down. “Wrong field! I told you that she is in palliative care, remember” answered Lisa (an interventional cardiology fellow) in an exaggerated stage whisper sitting down next to me. I grinned at my friends through the fog of the steaming coffee, unmindful of their comments. “Palltive? . . . Pallytive care”? Charlie said. “Sounds more like a tongue twister than like a new specialty in medicine. What is it about?” I instantly launched into my well-rehearsed zealous spiel on human suffering, quality of life, and holistic care for about 2 minutes without taking a breath when Charlie interrupted. “Sounds to me like a fancy name for a ‘Degree in Hand Holding’ to me. Why are you doing this? Is it the money?” “Doubt it,” Lisa answered for me, but her bafflement coming thru clearly. “In fact it is a difficult specialty you know . . . pretty depressing . . . caring for seriously ill patients all the time. Many of her patients die very fast” “That may be a side effect of VJ and not the field” grinned Charlie. “Are you in it because it is a new field?” asked Lisa, now genuinely curious. “No. Actually, I love to care for vulnerable and disenfranchised patients. It is wonderful and meaningful work. I can make a great positive impact on humanity by alleviating the suffering of patients with serious illnesses” I gave it another shot, hoping to get them to see what was pretty obvious to me. “Still sounds to me like a dead end—no pun intended” Charlie was chuckling when I thankfully got paged and quickly got up to answer it. It suddenly dawned on me that they were never going to “get it.” I was now on a journey that many of my friends just could not comprehend and I began to feel intensely lonely right there in the middle of that crowded coffee shop.