I have practiced and taught medicine for more than forty years, particularly focused on caring for patients and families confronting serious illness, dying, and death. Although caring for people with serious illness is core to the identity and practice of being a physician, most doctors are poorly trained to carry out this critical function, and thereby, unintentionally contribute to, or fail to ameliorate, the suffering that comes in the setting of serious illness. This recognition has driven my involvement in medical education.
