Hey, it's Anna. I want to let you know that this week's episode deals with the sudden death of a young child. Please take care while listening.

I don't know what I believe about like the bigger picture, but I've now thought about like, wow, did I land in this career because I needed this for my own journey, my own healing?

I don't know.

There's something that seems true about that.

This is death, sex, and money.

The show from WNYC about the things we think about a lot and need to talk about more.

I'm going to sail.

After Dr. Bonnie Chen's son died last year, it changed the way she talked to her own patients about death.

She's more tentative in her approach now. She wants to communicate about end of life in ways that a patient is ready to hear. So there are many visits where I don't use the

word death at all. And I find now that I really do feel my role is to walk alongside someone

in their serious illness. And sometimes denial is a beautiful coping mechanism.

Bonnie is in her 40s and lives in Oakland, California.

Most of her conversations with patients revolve around death somehow, because she's a palliative care

specialist. She's brought in to help patients manage serious, often untreatable illness,

when it's more about comfort than a cure.

There's something about being able to be with people, when they're getting hard hard news or when they're trying to figure out what's next or I see patients communicate with their families and them trying to love each other they best they can in the worst situation.

It's like you get this window into people's lives that, of course, you would never have

otherwise.

And it's a different kind of satisfaction than being able to fix someone or cure someone.

Bonnie has been a palliative care doctor for 10 years,

mostly working with patients who are dealing with terminal cancer,

something Bonnie's mom died from when Bonnie was 17.

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