ABSTRACT
Before my training as a physician I had little interest in the way people reacted to loss. This changed one night during medical school when an ambulance brought two young men to the emergency room where I was working. Both had been killed instantly when their car slammed into a concrete bridge abutment. When I realized their identities, I was unable to work for the rest of that night. Both of them were friends of mine. I had been with one of them only the night before. I sat in my room in the on-call quarters, overwhelmed by strong feelings that I could not understand. I had previously experienced the deaths of friends and family members. This was different. These two deaths of men my own age were unexpected, and I was not prepared to deal with them. I withdrew into myself and wondered why I could not go back to work in the emergency room.
