When we last left our hero, he was on Emergency Medicine and bracing himself for three blocks of Internal Medicine. Since then, he has made it through a block of inpatient medicine, a block of outpatient medicine, and will be starting his last block of inpatient medicine tomorrow. He will now stop writing in the third person. As you might imagine, working on Internal Medicine has left me with little time to blog. However, it has given me a chance to reflect on something important, inspired in part by a tragedy that struck the psychiatry department a couple of months ago.
Hans Hilst was a second-year psychiatry resident. On December 11, 2012, he unexpectedly passed away at the age of 30. He was one of the funniest, most loving people (if not the funniest, most loving person) I have ever met. He was the social chair of the residency, the self-proclaimed "Sultan of Socialization" and "Chief Resident of Leisurely Affairs." One of the commemorations I heard about him that I felt was very accurate went something like this: "Hans could meet a person for 10 minutes and make that person feel like they had been friends for 10 years." On his memorial service program, he was quoted as saying, "If we're lucky, there will be beer there." Presumably it was a reference to heaven, but knowing Hans he could have easily been talking about didactics.
All of these descriptions are an attempt on my part to distill the essence of Hans's spirit, which I can best summarize as Fearless Love.
Not just Love. Fearless Love.
Because Hans was fearless in showing his love. He never hesitated to make everyone feel welcome, especially when he was the host of a party (which oftentimes he was). Hans was one of first residents I met in the program; I was a fourth-year medical student doing my away rotation at Wright State, and he made an effort to meet me and exchange contact info. The handful of times that we worked together on the weekends at Miami Valley, he couldn't stop singing my name in a melodious falsetto while we typed our notes next to each other ("♫Luke Li, Luke Luke Luke Li...♫").
I was hoping to write a tribute soon after his passing, the same way I wrote one for Super Dave, but the time in between Hans's death and this post has given me the opportunity to reflect on his spirit of Fearless Love. He has inspired me to love others without worrying if they will love me in return. While working with patients or spending time with people outside of work, I hope to stop caring what others think about my caring and simply care, period. That, perhaps, is the best way I can give tribute to Hans.
[Pictures are worth far more than anything I could write. Rest in peace and enjoy that beer, Hans.]