What drew you to the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship (ASF)?
My Fellowship partner, Ruhi, knew a Baylor student in the class above us who was part of ASF. We thought that we had a pretty good idea, but we needed some guidance on how to make our dream a reality. That’s how we came across ASF.
Why did you pick the Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VA) as your project site?
We knew we wanted to focus on end of life care and mental health. Up until last year, there weren’t any opportunities for Baylor College of Medicine students to work with veterans in the service setting. And we thought that veterans might be a special population to explore the concept of end of life and a legacy after you pass away. We found really good support with the palliative care doctors at the VA.
What’s the goal of your project?
Our goal is twofold. So one is we want to help veterans on palliative care or hospice to have a bit more closure when it comes to the end of their life; maybe talk about things they were uncomfortable to talk about before, but now they have more headspace to do so. And also we want to help train our peers on how to deal with end of life topics since every doctor will have to deal with that at one point or another.
How did you approach the project and getting to know the community better?
We had a lot of help from our site mentor, Dr. Leanne Jackson. She knows all of her patients really well, and by connecting with her and getting to talk to her, we got to know the needs of the veterans that we’re serving better.
What’s been a big takeaway or impact on you from this experience so far?
I think the biggest takeaway is how fearless a lot of these veterans are when they are dealing with terminal illnesses. They’re very enthusiastic to talk about their lives, not only the highs but also the lows. It’s been really rewarding to see how much they enjoy the process of finding closure by talking to someone who will really sit there and listen to them.
Is there a special story you’d like to share from your project?
One story is something that happened to my project partner, Ruhi. She paired up with a veteran who unfortunately passed away during the process of writing his memoir. She was very sensitive and brave in finishing up the story with his family. She attended the funeral and got to know the family a bit better by having a meal with them. It’s very encouraging to see these human to human relationships that would have not otherwise existed.
Anything else you’d like to add?
I’d like to say that ASF has been really instrumental in helping us make this project a reality. Without their support, we wouldn’t be able to publish these memoirs and send physical copies to their families as something they can keep for decades to come to remember their loved ones.
About Michael Xie:
Michael Xie is a first-year medical student at Baylor College of Medicine. He is from Dallas, Texas, but moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to study history of science at Harvard University, where he was heavily involved in homeless outreach, medical humanities, and global health advocacy. He spent a year before medical school in Seattle working on climate change and health medical education and volunteering at a clinic serving homeless youth. Michael enjoys running, hiking, swimming, reading, and attending art museums and independent coffee shops. As an ASF Fellow, he is working on a brand-new project focused on helping veterans in hospice or palliative care write memoirs about their storied lives. Along with the other volunteers and his project partner, Ruhi Thapar, he hopes to break the stigma around planning a good death and to promote a more humanistic side of medicine.
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