Given M.D. Anderson’s role as a referral center, with patients often traveling long distances, Dr. Wolff says that he doesn’t always have the luxury of sufficient time for mourning. “For every patient that you lose, there are two or three others who are saying, ‘You need to help me right now.’?”

Dr. Fisch, when asked to reflect on the influence of Schwartz, talks about the spiel he typically gives at cocktail parties about his medical work, much of which involves end-of-life conversations.

“I say, ‘It’s not as depressing as you think. We learn a lot. We are inspired by people’s courage.’ And that’s not false. But that’s not the whole story.

“There’s a lot of loss and grief that people experience, and I experience that with them. If you are not measuring the toxicity on yourself, how do you begin to manage it?”

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