The death of a young physician is a double tragedy: the premature loss of a person cherished by family and friends and, in a wider sense, the equally extraordinary loss of a highly educated and trained medical professional, a shepherd revered by a flock of patients and sadly absent for future flocks of patients. I experienced this tragedy first hand when my beloved 52-year-old physician sister Dr. Jane Ann Moore died after a brief illness. I mourned not only a beautiful soul but also a young medical partner who gracefully cared for her patients as she battled tirelessly for their best interests. Over the weeks and months after her death, many patients remembered her medical skill with deep appreciation and affection, recognizing not only the personal loss of this exemplary wife, mother, and friend but also the devastating loss of her healing touch to coming decades of patients.
Then came in early September another heartbreaking tragedy which again underscored this double blow. Dr. Katie Patterson, 47, of Indianola, died after a brief illness. Her death shook the medical community of this state, especially the family medicine community, to its core. This wife, mother, and family physician was a dynamic leader among physicians: funny, fiery, opinionated, both passionate and compassionate. As physicians learned of her illness, multiple text chains of dozens of physicians sprung forth across the state, praying for her recovery, then grieving her sudden death with an outpouring of sadness. After countless prayers were sent for her husband David and four sons, one physician texted, “And her patients!” The hole her medical absence creates in Indianola and the Delta may never be filled.
Long ago, medicine’s father, Hippocrates, coupled “life is short” with “the art is long.” We all have an expiration date, and all physicians, like all of our patients, will die. The tragedy of a young physician’s death, however, is especially profound. In our underserved state, a young doctor’s death means a generation of patients deprived of access to a caring physician. A young doctor’s death leaves a massive void hard to fill in the provision of quality health outcomes. The songs unsung of lost young physicians are their unseen patients and unrealized triumphs in their medical care. Requiescat in pace: dear Jane Ann and Katie.
Contact me at drluciuslampton@gmail.com. — Lucius M. Lampton, MD, Editor