Journal of Palliative Care & Medicine
Open Access

Abstract

My wife passed away from pancreatic cancer, five years after the Whipple surgery and desperate efforts of treatment for two years at MS Anderson in Houston and Southern Cancer Center in Mobile, Alabama. This is an actual, and in-depth, case story of our experience in our interaction with oncologists during the last days of her life. The conclusion of the paper is that we felt no compassion from our oncologists. Compassion does not mean being nice or sweet-talking to patients. Compassion means to give patients medicine before they need it, explain them in detail what the future may hold, and guide them step by step so that they can leave this world with no pain, peace of mind, and dignity. We never received one.

Biography

Semoon Chang is a retired professor of economics from the University of South Alabama where he and his wife, Youngshin Chang, established an endowment for humanitarian service. He served as president of the Homeless Coalition of Mobile, president of the Planning Council of the United Way of Southwest Alabama, and president of the Association for University Business and Economic Research. Currently, he is a columnist of the daily Korea Times and a panelist of the quarterly World Economic Survey sponsored by the University of Munich in Germany.

E-mail: changsemoon@yahoo.com