Investigating Surgeons’ Reactions to Patients’ Death: A Phenomenological Study

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to scrutinize the reaction of surgeons towards patients’ death. This study enjoyed a qualitative approach using a phenomenological lived experience. 12 surgeons who had witnessed patients’ death were selected through purposive sampling until data saturation was achieved. The data were collected using semi-structured interviews and were analyzed through the Colaizzi’s method. The main concepts extracted from the analysis of the participants' experience comprised three main themes, six sub-categories and 19 initial sub-categories. The main themes were (a) emotional-mental reactions including the sub-themes of emotional distress, mood disorder and mental distress, (b) death encounter including the sub-themes of rational encounter and pre-emptive measure and (c) post-traumatic growth covering the concepts of optimism and performance improvement. The obtained findings imply that the patients’ death can sometimes make surgeons aware of the post-incident growth although such deaths affect their personal, family, social and professional lives.