“My mother died a quarter century ago. It took me two decades to be able to discuss her death publicly. In these years, I have seen glimpses of her in my patients. In these years, slowly but steadily, I have incorporated palliative care in my routine practice.”
Dr. Sushmita Ghoshal, Professor of Radiotherapy, PGIMER, Chandigarh shares a painful episode of her life in this series ‘What Palliative Care Means to Me’, and explains why she has decided to incorporate palliative care in her routine practice.
In late 1980s, the concept of palliative care was unheard of in our part of the world. My mother was suffering from metastatic lung cancer that was beyond any possibility of cure. I realized the limitation of the subject of my specialization, when I witnessed the sufferings of my mother from intense pain in her chest and back, the indignity of having to depend on others for every need, the ignominy of being a burden to people who had depended on her till then…read more