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How the sadness is handled by the physician has a powerful impact on the medical care received by the patients. If the grief is relentlessly suppressed–as in Eva’s experience during residency–the result can be a numb physician who is unable to invest in a new patient. This lack of investment can lead to rote medical care–impersonal at best, shoddy at worst. At the other end of the spectrum is the doctor who is inundated with grief and can’t function because of the overwhelming sorrow. Burnout is significant in both these cases, and that erodes the quality of medical care.
