My Mentor

Do you have a mentor?

I do.

I did, I should say.

That’s the thing about mentors.  You are never as important to them as they are to you.  They can be the most influential people in your life; the person you think of when you are struggling; the person who gives you strength to keep on going; the person you subconsciously emulate in your day to day life; the person you feel so close to at times that you are embarrassed to tell them just how important they are to you.

And that’s the thing about being on the receiving end of a mentorship relationship; when they suddenly die no one notifies you.  Sometimes the way you end up finding out is in a by chance reading of an affiliated hospital’s monthly newsletter.  No one even asked me to sit down.

It was a few months ago, I must confess, that I heard about Dr. Latimer’s passing.  I haven’t managed to blog about it yet out of sheer weakness: I was daunted by the overwhelming task of summarizing my complex mix of feelings in one lowly blog post.  But I feel I can’t miss this opportunity to write about someone who was so important to me.

Liz Latimer was one of the pioneers of Palliative Care in Ontario – if not Canada.  It was during a 1 month elective in my 3^rd year of medical school that I was first privy to her passion for Palliative Care.  I was hooked.  I can honestly say that I chose my path in medicine based on that one month of my life.  I spent the first 4 months of my residency with the main Palliative Care doc  in Thunder Bay and followed that up with many other electives in that area.  After settling in Collingwood and establishing my own family medicine practice, I recently went back and retrained with her to hone up my skills in order to establish my own half time practice in Palliative Care in my own community.

I don’t know HOW, with all that she does and everyone that she has taught, she remembered me, but she did.  Or at least, she pretended to.  


On my first day back with her she even reminded me of an event I had actually forgotten.  I had been a  3^rd year medical student just having completed a one month elective in Palliative Care.  It was Christmas time and I was on my Internal Medicine rotation.  The details of the exact circumstances escape me right now but the gist of it is that a patient I was following on Internal Medicine was dying and the Palliative Care team, who had only recently been asked to be involved, were out at their Christmas luncheon.  It was Dec 24^th.  For SOME reason I was the only one at the hospital and I remember Liz calling me from the restaurant and running through the impending conversation out loud with me.  “Are you SURE you’re OK explaining to this family what is happening?”  I didn’t appreciate at the time what a daunting, and somewhat inappropriate duty it was; to be the one to break the penultimate bad news to a grieving family, and to be a lowly 3^rd year medicine STUDENT.

Having students of my own now, I can’t even IMAGINE putting one of them into this scenario.  I also appreciate, now, how much she must have thought of me to do so...

As I enetered that patient's room that day, my white coat costume billowing behind me, I didn’t feel like a 3^rd year medical student.  As all of the grieving eyes of his family members looked expectantly to me to give them the information they so desperately searched for, I didn’t feel nervous from inexperience.

I answered their questions honestly.  I told them, almost verbatim, in the words of my mentor, what to expect, what we could and couldn’t do for them and how we would do our best to relieve all suffering and walk the journey with them from here on out.

The relief that was reflected back to me solidified for me that feeling of satisfaction.

Liz remembered that Christmas Eve that I delivered, for that family, the worst news imaginable.  She probably remembered it out of guilt.  I remember it now because it was one clairvoyant moment that changed my life. I had spent most of medical school feeling a little lost and disenchanted with the politics and “game” of medicine.  I’d like to THINK it happened slowly over the course of my month with her, but my confidence didn't actually blossom until that moment that she entrusted me with her gift.

I think of Liz almost every day.  I have quotes that she has written on my desk.  I have a file folder of her articles in my desk drawer which I photocopy and give to all of my own students.  Sometimes, when I talk to patients, I still hear myself echoing her in the questions and words I choose in our conversations.  I email Liz every 6 months or so to update her on Palliative Care in Collingwood.  She always replied with her usual familiar exhuberance that made me feel like I was just as important to her as she was to me.

Liz Latimer died fairly quickly in April of this year.  I found out quite suddenly, while casually perusing a Mc Master newsletter, in June of this year.  The loss is not only a huge one for our Palliative Care community, but also for our Province, our Country and for all of the many patients who need someone to advocate for them.  And for me.

I never told Liz how much she meant to me, but I wish I had.  I wish I had known sooner about her passing so I could have been there to share my overwhelming respect for her with her family at her funeral.  And I wish I knew that she had died peacefully, with someone (not a 3^rd year medical student) holding her hand, reassuring her and her family, as she has done for thousands of others, that all would be well in the end.