Looking after each other when a child dies

The death of a child is obviously and necessarily a very hard thing for parents and siblings. It can also be difficult for the professionals looking after a child, and if the death takes place in hospital it will affect medical, nursing and other staff, both senior and junior. Hollingsworth et al1 make a case for the notion that some trainee medical staff are deeply affected, and may be psychologically harmed, by such an experience. They rightly highlight that formal debriefing may be part of the problem rather than any solution. I would like to pick up this point and consider what we can collectively do to ameliorate the problem: how we should look after each other.

Child deaths in hospital happen in many ways: for example, the failed resuscitation of a desperately ill or moribund child in the emergency department; death in intensive care after some...

from # All Medicine by Alexandros G. Sfakianakis via alkiviadis.1961 on Inoreader http://ift.tt/2z7XEYC