- Hey guys, welcome back to the Dr. Cliff AuD vlog,
this is blog number 67 and today might be a shorter blog,
I haven't really decided yet.
It depends on how much I wanna talk about this subject
I'm about to talk about.
And what I wanna talk about today
is the thing that I hate most about my job.
And, you know, when it really comes down to it,
I love a lot of stuff about what I do
but the thing that I just absolutely hate
is when I have patients who pass away.
And the reason I'm bringing it up now is because
this last week was actually a really, really bad week
when it came to patients of mine passing away.
Actually two patients of mine passed away this last week,
and as you guys already know
I love each and every single one of my patients.
And that's largely why I get so much enjoyment
out of what I do.
And anytime that I hear from one of my staff that,
"Hey, so-and-so called in and so-and-so passed away."
You know, it always kind of takes me by surprise
even though I know that it shouldn't and you know,
and this is following this last week is following a couple
of weeks ago where I had another patient pass away as well.
And you know, when you, I don't know when you serve
in the military, like I did, you just know it's a matter
of time and you've kind of, you've put your mind
into a place where you know
that if you're in there long enough,
or if your buddies are in there long enough,
that you're eventually going to hear
that someone has passed away.
At least that's the way that it works when you serve,
you know, during combat times and all of that.
And I served back, you know, 2002-2006
in the Marine Corps with a couple of deployments,
and have a lot of buddies who were in and who stayed in
or who were kind of in longer than I was after I got out.
And, you know, and people die,
that's just, that's how it works.
And you kind of you grow to accept that
when you're in the military.
And that's also a part of this profession that I'm in,
I just happened to be in a profession
where there are individuals who are later in life,
you know, who get hearing loss.
And I am going to be practicing for the next,
who knows how many years,
and a lot of these patients that I'm working with.
I mean, if they're in their 70s, 80s, 90s right now,
the chances of a good portion
of those individuals passing away is really, really high.
And so, you know, even though I know that I should be
in this mindset of, I shouldn't be surprised if it happens,
you know, when you're in the civilian world,
I mean, it's just really kind of hard
to put yourself in that mindset,
almost like guarding yourself against someone passing away,
as you would when you're in the military.
The military is just a completely different mindset
that you have to be in in order
to like not let it affect you in a extremely negative way,
but it's hard to do that inside of, you know,
audiology, inside of any profession.
I mean, I don't, you know, I think it's different for,
you know, when you go to a funeral home and you have,
you know, these individuals who these,
I don't know what you call them, caretakers, undertakers,
whatnot at a funeral home.
And, you know, they're surrounded by death all the time,
and I think that that would be really hard
but the thing is, is that, you know, we form,
I form relationships with these individuals
over the course of years
and I really haven't even been in this profession that long.
And to think of all the patients that I've lost
along the way, it's just something that's not
a pleasant part about what I do.
And I think, you know, a lot of it is that I spend probably
more time with my patients than typical,
not saying that that makes me, you know,
grow to love my patients more than someone else would love
their patients if they spent less time with them.
But, you know, the longer you spend time with someone,
the more fond of them that you grow
or the more you dislike them, right?
I mean, there's always that too, but, you know,
I tend to follow more of like
a person-centered care approach in my clinic,
which means that I'm spending a lot of time
like really getting to know my patients
so I can better understand how to treat them
the most effective way I know how.
And you know, and that, it's a very heavy time commitment
in order to practice it that way.
So, you know, upon them initially coming in
there's a lot of like diving deep down
into their communication difficulties.
And a lot of that is relationship based
with family members who who we request
to come into their appointments with them
so we can get to know them too.
And so that's kind of the thing that makes this even harder
is that you know the family members
and you know how much they're hurting and it's just,
it's an unpleasant thing for them to be going through.
And me just knowing how difficult
that obviously is for them, you know,
getting to know their loved ones so much who passed away.
That's a really tough thing to handle as well
is that grieving process for them in a lot of ways.
But, you know, we spend so much time
just initially getting to know them
and getting to know their family
and finding out the communication difficulties
within that relationship dynamic,
and then we go into this, you know, this like process
of actually doing their treatment, where I see my patients
usually between 4-5 hours over the course of around
a 45-day time period, where you're finding out
how their treatment improved their lives in different areas,
what areas we still need to work on.
And you just like, you get to know them so well.
And so it's just really hard when they end up going away
and, you know, the individuals that I worked with here
that have passed away here in the last couple of weeks,
I mean, they've been my patients for a good amount of time.
One of them was actually just a freak accident.
One of them was not even just, you know,
passing away of natural causes from old age,
I don't believe that any of these causes were COVID related.
I just think that, you know, one of them was an accident
and then two of them is just, it was time for them
to move on and, you know, over the course of in my clinic,
I typically see my patients anywhere
between 2-4 times a year.
So, and it's kind of funny 'cause like every time
they come back in, the first 15 minutes
of every appointment just seems to be like,
I'm finding out how their life is going and everything
like that, telling them about what I've got going on.
So there's just that really nice, you know,
that really nice dynamic that, you don't get everywhere.
You know, like I have that type of relationship
with my family and with my close friends.
And I also have that type of relationship with hundreds
of other individuals who are my patients in my clinic.
And it just, you know, it's like having a friend pass away
to a large degree and it's kind of difficult to know how
to go through that grieving process, you know,
and I get to know them obviously better
than I know their family members, but you know,
it just seems like, you know,
sending a card and sending flowers just
isn't enough sometime, but, you know, I just don't know
how else to convey my sympathies, you know?
And I don't know, and then with, you know, COVID going on,
it's not even really as possible now to, you know,
go to funerals and be in attendance for those.
And it's just, I don't know, it's just hard.
So, you know, the one thing that I kind of,
one thing that kind of is inspiring to me
is this is the reason why I put so much effort
into hearing treatment.
I mean, I get patients who come in regularly who, you know,
they're in their 80s, 90s, I mean, they feel like
they don't have that much longer to live.
And they say that they're like,
"Oh, I don't know if I wanna treat my hearing loss,
I don't know how much longer I have."
And I'm like, "Well, the time that you do have,
let's just say hypothetically,
you weren't to pass away in the next 2-3 years,
I mean, wouldn't, you want to make sure
that you have your hearing the best capacity
it could possibly be at so you could communicate
with family and friends during the time that you have?"
And at the end of the day,
none of us really know when we're gonna go.
I mean, I could have very well been killed
when I was riding my bicycle three weeks ago, at this point.
So, and I might not even be here, you know,
but you can't live your life with this expectation,
like, "Oh, I'm just gonna pass away soon,
so treating my hearing loss doesn't matter."
You could make the argument that it matters even more.
And I think that's why I put so much effort
into doing hearing treatment.
At least I can get some solace knowing that,
or some gratification knowing that I know that each
and every one of these patients who's passed away,
that they were hearing their absolute best
that they possibly could up until that moment
where they were called back home.
So, I do take a lot of pride in that
and that makes me feel good.
I know that none of them had any complaints
with their hearing when it was time for them to go.
So, like I said, I think today it's just kind of man,
what a depressing week this was with patients passing away.
I'm actually proud of myself that I did not cry
during this vlog, but you know, it's just been, you know,
I know that a lot of people go through, you know,
through loss, loss of family, loss of friends, you know,
it just really makes you appreciate that relationships,
that close relationships that you have
are extremely valuable
and you should never take them for granted.
And, you know, it's still gonna shock me
every single time I have a patient pass away,
it's gonna catch me off guard.
I even had 104 year old patient pass away last year.
that caught me off, that caught me off guard too.
She was a very spry lady and I still miss her
to be quite honest.
And actually, I miss her and I miss her family
because they would all come in together
and I kind of miss those relationships
as they tend to move on.
So, but anyway, yeah, pretty depressing vlog.
I mean, other than that,
I mean other than having some patients pass away
this was actually a really, really good week.
I've got a lot of stuff going on, you know,
considering the Best Practice PRO Network,
I'm thinking of taking that in a couple
of different directions, really trying to expand that
to help individuals with hearing loss, get in touch
with a hearing care professional who follows best practices.
So there's a lot of good stuff going on.
I just kind of had to vent that and get it off my chest.
I still love what I do,
I still feel like there's no better profession out there
for me anyway, with the relationships
that I do get to form with my patients.
And the one thing that I can say is that literally every day
when I come back home from work,
it almost feels as if I've been hanging
out with my friends all day,
which is a crazy thing to think of.
Like, I never watch the clock,
it always seems like I go in at 7:30 in the morning
and before I know it, it's 5:30 PM.
And I just feel like I've been socializing
with my friends the whole day,
because really all of my patients are my friends
and I really am truly interested in knowing
about their lives and just getting to know them
on a deeper level, rather than just, you know,
treating the Xs and the Os on their audiogram.
So that's really it for today, guys,
I really appreciate you guys listening
to me vent about this.
I think this has just been helpful for me
to kind of grieve in my own little way
about the passing of some of my patients.
So hopefully next week is a much more uplifting vlog
and hopefully I got some really awesome information
to share with you guys.
But if you did like this video
go ahead and give it a thumbs up,
make sure that you're subscribed to the channel.
And as always, I'll see you next week.
(upbeat music)