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Death happens. No big deal. Even this early in our medical careers, it's unnervingly easy to shrug it off when trauma patients die right in front of you, when you discuss patients in Morbidity & Mortality conferences, when geriatric patients pass away. As inhumane as it sounds, there were definitely times when it was like - oh that Level I patient was DOA. Oh, my DNR patient coded. Now then, who's up for coffee?

Somehow it's different in young patients, though I know it's technically not any different. Somehow it's more tragic when teens end up paralyzed in MVCs. Somehow it's more heartbreaking when children die before organ donors become available. Today I found out one of my old patients was sent to hospice. Later today my school-aged, previously healthy, now quadriplegic and vent-dependent, patient looked me straight in the eye and said "Please kill me. I want to die."

God. How do you forget something like that?