Volume 23, Number 4: April 2022

Dr. Douglas Bridge, a theologian by training whose career in medicine led him to become a palliative care pioneer and professor in Australia, has been a long-time and avid proponent of recognizing the value—and practice—of spirituality in palliative care. Now 75, 14 years after his Parkinson’s disease was diagnosed, the topic is more relevant to him personally than ever. This is the second part of our interview. (See Part 1: Dr. Douglas Bridge on the remarkable gift of death.)

Moved by the Spirit, Part 2: A journey toward wisdom

By Alison Ramsey
IAHPC Newsletter Editor

The first part of this story concluded with by Dr. Douglas Bridge’s decision, after an illness where he thought he would die, that he would only work on matters whose impact could last beyond his lifetime.

As with Part 1, all quotes are by Dr. Bridge, and Part 2 opens with one of them:

“When I’ve asked a class of people in their 20s, ‘Are you going to die?’ Their response is, ‘Of course I’m going to die. Everyone knows that.’ But their faces tell me there’s no emotional attachment to their statement. If a patient asks, ‘Will I die?’, they’ll start to cry because they are dying, and it’s profound. You have only one chance [to die]. You can’t practice it.

Success hampers spirituality?

“Take a 25-year-old brilliant medical student: how do they come to deep spiritual wisdom? The only way through to it is through suffering. Success in life doesn’t lead you through to the spiritual.”

The difficulty that young people have imagining the challenges of impending death hasn’t stopped Dr. Bridge from teaching spirituality in palliative care, but he has used some unusual methods in his attempt to foster it in young med students.

Take, for instance, his technique of holding academic retreats at his 500-acre timber plantation, allowing nature to help provoke and guide students’ reflections. He also designed a two-week course, “Spirituality, Suffering, and Healing,” that “emphasizes learning from the patient and each other.”

It was a tactic he learned at the side of palliative care pioneer Dr. Derek Doyle in 1985.

“After he gave a talk here, I asked if I could work as his apprentice, and shadowed him for three weeks.” The impact of what Dr. Bridge learned, and how he learned it, guided a lifetime of practice and teaching.

Not rational, but true

“One day, during my three weeks at St. Columba’s Hospice, I asked the staff, ‘Can I be a nurse today?’ They said, ‘Okay, your next task is to give a sponge bath to this patient.’ I didn’t know how to do it, I was completely ignorant, and was washing his leg when I had a serious experience. I thought, ‘This is the body of Jesus. You’re washing Jesus’ leg.’ It made no rational sense; it was a revelation. The moment of death is where the temporary meets the eternal, where the mortal touches immortality. In that moment, at the doorway, patients often die with mystical experiences. It [that moment of death] doesn’t ‘fit’ society’s very materialistic philosophy of life.

“The treasure of aged people to society is lost. The supreme blessing of being present when someone dies; that transition is a profound, sacred mystery, but we’ve lost it.”

Other moments guided Dr. Bridge’s career toward a deeper immersion in palliative care.

Early in his career, in 1989 the government offered a $200,000 grant to save spending on acute-care beds at Fremantle Hospital. “I saw patients who had been lying in hospital wards for months. They were too sick to go home, and it was costing a fortune.” He got the grant, which financed four beds at the end of a ward that were decorated in a home-like manner, and where the rules of treatment changed.

While at Royal Perth Hospital, where he was the inaugural palliative care physician and became Head of Department, in 2002 he was invited to give a lecture to a group of physicians and nurses visiting from Taiwan, where palliative care was well entrenched. His words were translated by a member of the group.

“We can’t do death”

“At the end of my talk, ‘Dying, A Spiritual Journey,’ there was vigorous discussion in Mandarin. I thought, ‘What have I done? How did I cause offence?’ One man in Buddhist robes stood and said, ‘I’m a professor of philosophy. Your talk was the best one we’ve heard. We have a gift for you. In the Chinese zodiac, we think the best animal is the pig, a symbol of prosperity and wealth.’” He then handed Dr. Bridge a green box containing a small plastic pig. “I bowed my head and said, ‘I am deeply honoured to receive this pig.’ When my wife saw it, she said, ‘Throw it in the bin.’ I kept it; it’s one of my treasures.’

Then they invited him to assist spirituality training in Taiwan. “They said, ‘our health care is equal to the world’s best, but we can’t do death.’ I was still hoping to return to Bangladesh, being fluent in Bangla. With fear and trembling, I went, and was asked back for the next five years. I have made seven visits to Taiwan and two to China teaching the spiritual dimension of palliative care, which is a missing dimension of medical training.”

What has the journey been like for you, as you transitioned from physician to patient?

“It is like making a beautiful Persian carpet. The individual threads vary in size, shape, and color, and appear to have no relationship to each other. But the completed carpet is a thing of immense beauty, which has only been achieved by placing every thread in its unique location, with unique relationships to adjacent fibres.

“Balfour Mount wrote, ‘It is possible to die healed.’ Academic status, accolades, journal publications, wealth and power inevitably fade into irrelevance. The healing process includes family reconciliation, forgiving and being forgiven, loving and being loved, thanking and being thanked.”

To learn more about Royal Perth Hospital visit the IAHPC Global Directory of Palliative Care Institutions and Organizations.

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