Doctors may heal illnesses but cannot prevent Death

Lately, a close friend of mine had a brother who was loved by God more and took an early trip to heaven. My friend's family must have been upset to deal with the grief. As an outsider who had met my friend's late brother just twice, I can sense a feeling of gloom whenever I came across a photo of him. At least, he appeared happy in all the photos.
2 week ago, a patient succumbed to the complications of hip fracture due to motor vehicle accident. I met her and reviewed her for a week until the last few days of her life. I received news that she developed shortness of breathe a week post operatively and passed away.
When I was in first year of medical school, my 5th year senior passed away suddenly due to pneumonia. I met him twice also, yet he remembered my name then. May he rest in peace.
Just today, I read about the double tragedy involving the world, namely, the Padang earthquake and the Samoan tsunami. Both natural disasters claimed over thousands of lives in just a short duration.
"Survival of the fittest"? Probably, "survival of the luckiest" would be more fitting. We have no control over the length of our lifespan (except those who chose the shortest route to end their lives). Life is full of suffering, grief, loneliness, and depression.
We Doctors may do our best to heal illnesses, relieve symptoms, and comfort emotions, yet there's a Force dictating the duration of our lifespan left to effect a change in the world. There's a limit to our capabilities, but there's no reason to stop whatever we are doing though it may seem a futile effort. Why resuscitate a septic elderly patient who had bilateral above knee amputation with cardiac asystole? Ending the life may seemed the more comfortable option instead of letting her experiencing more pain. Most of the time, we Doctors had to adhere to certain protocols that dictate our every actions instead of based on emotions per se (like in the medical dramas).
Primum non nocere - First, do no harm. There's rarely black or white when it comes to ethical issues. There's patches of grey areas that should be decided on our own judgement at that time. We don't play God and decide who should live and who shouldn't. Instead we try to understand our patients as well as do our family and decide within the boundaries of limitations imposed by the hospital, MOH and medical expertise available.
Like the boy who threw starfishes back to the ocean, we witnesses the actions of Death day in day out, we wept for the loss, we paused to remember the good deeds, and we moved on to the next human that need our assistance.
Our time will be up someday, we live everyday not primarily to enjoy our lives to the fullest, but to ease the life of the helpless folks on the brink of death, because one day we'll become old and extend our hands hoping our final moments will be painless...

Meaning of Mooncake Festival

In my family, Mooncake Festival always seem a special occasion every year. Though my family is not big, juz d 5 of us, there's always the merry spirit of the Festival radiating through the household. Especially when we're younger, there's more activities we actively participate in. There's the candle lighting (similar to Deepavali juz without the lamps) with colourful candles. There's the important lantern lighting and parading. Once the porch and living room lights were turned off, we started lighting our candles and lanterns. Soon, we can see 2 more lighted in the opposite houses. It's like an informal competition among the neighbours to see who can light the most lanterns. I think we still hold d winning record as once neighbour kids grow older, there goes the lantern tradition as well.
I love the view of the lanterns' radiance during the first 15 mins. Then we had to either check each lantern to put in another lantern, or to put out lanterns that caught fire. By then, Mom would have prepared the table, fragrance, food, and delicacies for worshipping. I didn't know why, for many years, I didn't get to see the full face of moon on this auspicious day. I'll hope to catch it this year. Once the prayers were fulfilled, we started to help Mom carry the offerings into the house, and later to our stomach, literally. With the TV airing some HK movies, we helped ourselves to the tasty mooncake, smooth jelly, sweet pomelo, occasionally 'cow horn - like' food, and packet drinks. By 1130 pm, our lanterns would either be extinguished or 'become offerings' and the fireworks would start. As law-abiding citizens kononnya, we don't play with fireworks but we love to watch them.
Thinking back, as our lives become revolutionized with smaller and cheaper PC, handphones and better individualized entertainment, some things in the past are worth cherished as these traditions are becoming rarity with the pressure of work and attraction of other form of entertainment. Though just a simple event, the act of being together in the comfort of family makes it a lasting picture in my memory.