| Friday, 25 April 2008 |
| the pillars of medicine |
Thank god for the end of the writers' strike. Today, I spent the afternoon watching the first new episodes of the dramas 'Grey's Anatomy' and 'Brothers & Sisters' to be produced in months. And I've got to say, the producers of these series are back in a vengeance. The quality of this week's episodes are some of the best seen this season, especially so for 'Grey's'. This week's episode was just a right dose of humour and drama, and sorta correlates with what we, as medical students, are currently going through right now. I loved it.
"The 4 pillars of medicine are anatomy, physiology, pathology and the art of conning patients" - Anon
And speaking of what we are going through right now, the second week of CSFC has finally come to an end, and we end it off with the release of the results of our year 2 finals. So I'm officially a M3 student now! (Sigh!) I must admit I was very disillusioned with what I was doing when I was shadowing some big shot Orthopaedics surgeon in clinics yesterday. Just seeing the way he treats his patients made me feel like whatever we are doing now is of absolutely NO use at all.
All those stuff about communicating with the patient, of feeling empathy with patients, of treating them as respectable human beings, really seem like crap taught to us to ensure that the faculty gets its butt covered when members of the public complain about the crudeness of the doctors being produced by the local University.
I guess each and everyone of us medical students has to start thinking about what kind of doctor you want to end up being. What kind of doctor are you really determined to be? You see all those really good doctors in television programmes, who are compassionate, yet professional at the same time, and you keep telling yourself that you really want to end up like them. But the truth is, that kind of person only exists in television programmes. Doctors in the real world rarely come in that perfect sort of balance. They are either too professional, or too compassionate, with absolutely no in betweens.
Everyday in CSFC, I question the kind of doctor, the kind of person I want to be, because everyday in clinics, you see how other people act, you see how your mentors and tutors behave, you see how your peers and colleagues change, and you see the wide spectrum of patients present in society and its kinda hard not to be influenced and changed by all that you soak in.
There are times where I really want to try to be compassionate and nice to my patients, but there are also times where I tell myself that its much easier to be strictly professional and emotionless when dealing with them. To be involved or detached, where do you draw the line?
I met this nice little sweet old lady in the clinics. She was staying in my base ward and I regret not getting to know her earlier. I've been going back and forth to talk to her since Tuesday, and today, she got discharged. I was lucky to catch her while she was preparing to leave and coincidentally, I was leaving the hospital while she left it as well. She was a lovely patient, and the first in what is hopefully going to be a long list of favourite patients to come. I hope she'll keep her health at tip top condition, and I hope to never ever have to see her in the hospital again, but some part of me will miss her, and hopes to see her in a non hospital setting or something.
I have another three years to figure out what kind of doctor I want to be. Whatever it is, I hope not to be an overly lousy one.Labels: brothers and sisters, clinics, grey's anatomy, quotes |
posted by voldemort33 @ 20:55  |
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| 1 Comments: |
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You quoted the "the art of conning patients." None better than the pharmaceutical industry to take the title of master conner.
Mr. Dan Abshear joined the GNIF Brain Blogger writing team earlier this month. He recently divorced himself from "big pharma" and now reveals the corruption involved with drug development, research, and approval in order to get to our medicine cabinets. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Shaheen
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You quoted the "the art of conning patients." None better than the pharmaceutical industry to take the title of master conner.
Mr. Dan Abshear joined the GNIF Brain Blogger writing team earlier this month. He recently divorced himself from "big pharma" and now reveals the corruption involved with drug development, research, and approval in order to get to our medicine cabinets. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Shaheen