how do you cope with working with people with life threatening diseases?

Question: how do you cope with working with people with life threatening diseases?
- Keywords:
  disease,
  epidemiology,
  job,
  threatening
Asked by beam to Rika, Alex on 15 Jun 2011.
- Alex Davenport answered on 15 Jun 2011:
  
  I don’t generally meet them. Normally us scientists are tucked away in a research lab somewhere, but I was fortunate enough to be in a lab that had many medical doctors also undergoing research, so I met a few cancer patients.
  It is difficult, but most patients are aware that you’re trying your best to help people like them in the future. It feels horrible sometimes to know that you can;t help the person you met, but what feels good is knowing that people like them in the future may not have to suffer.

Question: how do you cope with working with people with life threatening diseases?