‘So, what do you do?’. Here we go, I think. I proceed to explain that I am a palliative care doctor. I work mostly with children, but some adults facing serious illness, supporting their physical, emotional and spiritual needs and often end of life care.

This is the moment the conversation gets really awkward.

Cocking their head to the side they say, ‘I don’t know how you do what you do. You must be so special. An angel.’

Well, ‘thank you’ I say. When in truth I am thinking. Nope, no angel here. Just someone willing to talk about topics others find uncomfortable or difficult. I am prepared to have those conversations that the vast majority hope they will never have to.

And yet when it comes down to serious and possibly life ending illness, wouldn’t it be comforting to have someone empathetically tell the truth? Someone…