Biden needs compassion right now. So does America. What is the first family thinking?

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Compassion and empathy are key parts of any doctor’s armamentarium. This is because all people facing illness do so with a combination of trepidation, courage, denial, even absolute terror.

It is my job to navigate among the various responses and provide not just treatment, but also succor. When it comes to this role, no patient is more difficult than one who is losing their mental faculties.

This is frequently accompanied by denial, as appears to be the case with the president of the United States. And to the extent to which he may be aware of the reality, it must be painful. Joe Biden certainly must recognize the huge diminishment of support (on Wednesday alone, George Clooney, one of Biden’s biggest backers, urged him to leave the race in a New York Times op-ed). Indeed, at this time, the president is particularly vulnerable to associated anxiety and depression (which could easily make his cognitive problems worse – known as pseudodementia).

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I feel compassion for the president, and for the embarrassment and bewilderment he must be feeling along with not wanting to believe that he is markedly diminished. Welsh poet and writer Dylan Thomas’s most famous line of poetry, "rage, rage, against the dying of the light," unfortunately does