How We Keep Caring While Walking Through Our Pain

Abstract

2 Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics • Volume 13 • Number 3 • Winter 2023 a tiny bit of your soul and makes you question your role in the world. By being the best physician I can be, I hope to prevent future cruel, unjust, and untimely deaths, one person at a time. But there is only so much a physician can do. Similarly to others working in bioethics, my research spans several topics, from clinical to public health ethics.Afew topics, however, are particularly close to my heart, and the Israeli occupation is one of them. The untimely death of the baby drives this passion. I could not save that baby. No one could. But as a physician and a privileged academic I can choose to channel my efforts to make them count towards preventing other cruel, untimely, and unjust deaths. Through effective scholarship that focuses on the Israeli occupation and health conditions of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, I seek to give voice to those who often go unheard. In this specific instance, that voice belonged to a Jewish Israeli baby, whereas in most other instances, it is the voice of Palestinians. Academia sometimes makes us forget the real reasons we do what we do. We become embroiled in the ‘publish or perish’ game and focus on publishing for the mere sake of publishing and of professional promotion. Rejections sadden us, making us doubt our aptitude as writers and thinkers. Grant application and administrative work weigh us down. It seems that almost all of us have considered abandoning academic life at some point, following perhaps some job interview that went sour. For me, it is exactly during these instances that the image of the pale baby, covered by the ambulance ’s orange blanket, reminds me why I do what I do. Humanity’s past, present, and future are packed with unjust and untimely deaths, and all individuals have a responsibility to remember, attend to, and prevent them, respectively. The responsibility of healthcare workers and academics to do so is even greater. Naturally, the Israeli occupation is personally closer to my heart, but wherever unjust deaths occur, there healthcare workers and academics should be. Healthcare workers then have several roles during armed conflicts. First, they ought to provide care whenever care is due and as long as their safety is assured. Second, they ought to bear witness and speak truth to power. Through professional and popular outlets, they should warn the world that these events are occurring and urge that they should not happen again. Everything I do, both as an academic and as a physician, I do for him. B How We Keep Caring While Walking Through Our Pain Ola Ziara with support from Rachel Coghlan P alestinian-American poet, Suheir Hammad, writes: Occupation means that every day you die, and the world watches in silence. As if your death was nothing, as if you were a stone falling in the earth, water falling over water. And if you face all of this death and indifference and keep your humanity, and your love and your dignity and you refuse to surrender to their terror, then you know something of the courage that is Palestine. I am a doctor from the Gaza Strip in Palestine. I live through acute war and protracted occupation. I work under missiles and through scant resources. I experience risks and dangers and face abominable choices made from nightmares. I know heartbreaking death. As doctors here, we fear, suffer, cry, and grieve alongside our patients and their families. This is my story of how we continue to care. ********** Summer 2014 A Fifty-Two-Day War: How To Stay And How To Keep Them Safe The huge bombardment strikes close to the hospital, scattering glass and rubble. It brings an abrupt end to my rare, quiet pause for coffee. Are the babies hit? We sprint to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, our  Healthcare Under Fire: Stories from Healthcare Workers During Armed Conflict 3 full attention only on those infants, hastily checking every crib. My thoughts are frenzied. What if the next missile strikes us? Will I be able to rescue them? Will I have time to carry their tiny...