Sensitive article

This is with reference to your article on PVS (1). I was touched by the entire story, but what touched me most is your reference to nurses who care for such patients. Being a nurse myself, I appreciate the fact that you have given thought to the caring aspects of PVS. I have often wondered why many medical professionals admit terminally-ill patients with problems such as multiple secondaries in the brain, or PVS, into intensive care units and drain nurses’ emotional strength. Having worked for over five years in intensive care units, my colleagues and I have died many times over with every patient (especially after caring for them for five days or more). A student of mine who worked as a staff nurse once described to me her suffering when a patient who was intubated for over seven days died in the ICU. She was quite sure that the patient wanted to say something and was trying to communicate, but he died without being able to do so. The death of that patient, without a loved one near him, without being able to talk to anyone, killed a little of bit of the nurse in her.