On the Death of a Colleague

I was fortunate to hear Ranjana Srivastava speak at a conference last year.  So, when an essay of hers appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine this week, I eagerly read it.

Dylan Thomas famously intoned. “After the first death there is no other” – but perhaps there are many types of “first deaths.”  That of a child, that of a parent, a lover, sibling, and in Dr. Srivastava’s case – that of a beloved mentor and colleague.

“I marvel that in a hospital that routinely and efficiently deals with life, death, and all the intervening drama, the passing of our colleague has shattered the established structure for coping with loss."

"There seems to be an expiration date to grieving, a point when it becomes

tedious to others.”

If you go to the pdf of On the Death of a Colleague, you will need to scroll down on page one to get to the essay.  NEJM does not make it easy to share its pieces.