Coping with Loss: A Guide to Death, Grief and Clinical Experiences with Dying Patients

In a cure-focused profession, the death of a patient can often feel like a failure. Yet, every patient will inevitably transition from health to illness, independence to dependence, and life to death. These transitions often mark some of the most meaningful interactions between patients and care providers. Coping with Loss is a self-directed workbook that addresses common questions, concerns, and emotional responses to these interactions with dying patients. Each lesson opens with real stories of professional grief that will resonate with healthcare professionals at multiple stages of their careers. Critical topics covered include recognizing the diverse presentations of grief, identifying dying patients, decompressing individually, and debriefing as a team. Significant portions of the text discuss how challenging patient cases impact the formation of professional identity.  Ultimately, this workbook provides a place for healthcare providers to reflect on their patient interactions and learn how to support themselves and their healthcare teams through grief.

Dr. Erin Currey is a resident physician in the Department of Internal Medicine (IM) at Wright Patterson Medical Center and Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. She is a member of her residency’s Doctor’s Dilemma team, a trivia game styled after Jeopardy! a competition for residency programs across the country. Her research on healthcare provider grief has led her to serve on the Gold Humanism Honor Society Wellbeing Committee and as one of the TriService American College of Physician National Wellbeing Champions. She completed medical school at the University of Michigan. Before medical school, she was a scientific program analyst at the National Institutes of Health, supporting the Ethical, Legal and Social Implications Research Program. She completed her undergraduate degree at Wake Forest University, where she was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa for academic excellence. She is a lifelong member of Alpha Phi Omega, the National Service Fraternity.

Dr. Molly Fessler studied sociology and peace studies at Bryn Mawr College before serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Belize from 2014 to 2016. She is the co-founder of Auxocardia Journal, a creative space for health professional students, and graduate with distinction of the University of Michigan Medical school. She is an Albert Schweitzer Fellow for Life, member of the Gold Humanism Honor Society, Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society, and one of the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation’s inaugural Wolfson scholars. Her academic and creative works have been published in Tendon Magazine, on NPR.org, in the Annals of Family Medicine, and Academic Medicine, among others.