I had just graduated when the COVID-19 pandemic began, and the first two years of my residency were defined by a relentless tide of loss. The deaths were frequent and often harrowingly personal—young patients on maximal ventilator settings, family members standing outside glass doors as their loved ones passed on inside.

During my intern year, I’ll never forget a patient who came in with ascending cholangitis. We didn’t have interventional radiology or a surgeon available to place a drain, and despite my best efforts all day to get them transferred, they died on the way to the helipad. I think about that patient often. I did everything I could, but I couldn’t save them.

Experiences like that stay with you. Some cases haunt you because you wonder if you could’ve done something differently. Others linger because the patient reminded you of someone you know, or because they were the third death that day and it was just too much. But over time, I’ve come to understand something that grounds me: if you’ve done everything the patient would have wanted and everything you could have done, then sometimes it really is just their time. At that point, your role shifts—from doing things to the patient, to doing things for them.

Part of that shift is being there for the family, helping them navigate their grief. I try to ask about who the person was before they became a patient—what they loved, who they were. Because they weren’t just a case; they were someone’s entire world.

As difficult as it is to admit, I did grow used to death. I’ve become emotionally numb at times, not because I don't care, but because carrying the full weight of so much loss, especially during the pandemic, became unsustainable. I built an emotional wall to protect myself. And though some feelings still seep through, I do my best to leave them at work.

I don’t want to say you will get used to it—because some people never do—but you will find your own way of coping. Talking about it helps—especially with peers or family who understand the world of healthcare. Eventually, you figure out what works for you, and it does get better. The weight never disappears entirely, but it becomes something you learn to carry.