As a future physician, nothing bothers me more than students treating patients like they do textbooks: solely as learning tools. Like the textbook, they take from the patient, probing and reading labs, feeling a momentary shiver of excitement with each possible diagnosis, and continuing to the next chapter when they've learned all that is possible or interesting. Constantly bombarded with "clinical scenarios" describing could-be patients with very real ailments compounds the issue, forcing the real patients to bear the brunt of our insensitivity and social clumsiness. The purely intellectual awe geared towards a patient with a horrible "zebra" of a disease trumps any semblance of empathy towards the pain and suffering being experienced.
Patients are not disease states, they are people with stories to tell and a modesty and dignity that is the physician's responsibilty to maintain if ever they cannot. Yes, future physicians have to learn from the sick in order to treat the sick, but they must also respect and understand them. I have been lucky enough in my lifetime to have never been hospitalized, but if I were a patient I would feel horribly uncomfortable knowing the sometimes locker room-esque antics exhibited behind closed doors (or curtains).
*Photo depicts a human heart with a left ventricular wall aneurysm, a feared sequelae of acute myocardial infarction.
.jpg)
1 comment:
Amen mi amiga
Post a Comment