From First Breath to Last Breath.
When someone asks me what I do, I usually say:
“I care for patients with chronic and life-limiting illnesses. I help them live as well as possible — and when the time comes, I help them have a good death.”
Recently, I was sitting with a gynaecologist friend. She brings life into this world. She cares for a mother and delivers a child — a new beginning, a first cry, a lifetime ahead.
That child grows, is nurtured, loved, and becomes someone’s memory-maker.
Years later, when illness advances and age bend the body, that same life may come under my care.
Just as a gynaecologist prepares a mother for birth, we in palliative care prepare patients and families for another profound transition.
She welcomes the first breath.
We witness the last breath.
She cares for mother and baby.
We care for patient and family.
She ensures a safe delivery into life.
We strive to ensure a dignified departure from it.
Both are sacred spaces.
Both require science, skill, and immense humanity.
And perhaps that is the beauty of medicine —
We stand quietly at the two most vulnerable thresholds of existence.
Building the vision to build Hospice care in the holy city of Varanasi
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