today i took my first pt history.
There I sat in front of my 5 medical school colleagues and a clinical tutor while I felt my heart throbbing inside of me. I began wit hthe chief complaint on to history of present illness onto family history onto sexual history on to social history and and the interview ended.
i forgot to do the most important thing, which was to build rapport. A year ago, I entered medicine in order to listen to people's voices, in order to hear what they had to say instead of sift throuhg clinical mumbo jumbo, and here I was taking my first pt history and I forgot to make the pt feel comfortable, at ease or break the ice.
I knew as the interveiw progressed but technical aspects of the history were so ingrained in my head i forgot to be human. i seem to forget that often these days.
its like im often like a machine. that is cosntantly running and processing data..its like i cant ever stop to catch my breath or listen to my thoughts or feel what i am feeling.
i use to once be a feeling caring individual. that wasnt intersted in the science..that wasnt interested in the clinical mumbo jumbo..but has empahty been drained out of me? am i just another product of a medical school training doctors to be scientists and not healers.
i dont know the answer to this. perhaps, when i joined medical school i decided to sell my soul to the medical industry. what i thoguth was learning the art of healing sometiems feels like a big prison cell i cannot escape. i know that i have come here willingly but i dont know who i am turning into..
i use to care once..and i still do..but why have the sciences outweighed humanity...why have i become more attuned to pathology than the human existence..
where has my heart gone..is it still there? this year is giving me such cognitive dissonance..on one side we are being bombarded with all types of scietinfic and clinical knowledge to which most of the credits are distributed. we are expected to master these areas in order to one day become effective physicians..and a much much smaller amount of time and number of credits is given to actually learning how to listen or communucate with a patient..
but somtiems i think, isnt this why i enterd medicine? in order to be the person that does go the extra mile that gets to know the person isntead of trying to perform the most comprehensive and technically corest hisotry possible which i did..
honestly, i dont know who im turning into..and most of the time i dont even have time to figure it out..I should be working on my path notes but im tired today..my brain..my heart my being is tired..
i just hope i can become the type of physician i ought to be..the type of physician that does have a strong foundation in the sciences, but doenst let that rule their perecprctive because people are first and foremost human beings with feelings, emotiions, aspirations..
i cant change the way i took history this afternoon of an individual of whom i would like to divuldge no details in order to protect confidentiality. but next time i hope that i stop and evaualte myself and really reflect upon what type of physican i want to be.
perhaps now after a year of struggling i do have somewhat of a strong grasph of the material, but that doenst qualify me in any way to be a doctor..
i think thats wut scares me the the most is that i feel like im not ready..as if this is all happening is fast and its so overwhelming..and im not overwhelemd by the work but by the fact that next time htis yr i will be at a hosptial seeing pateitns..
i hope i dont dissappoint my professors in undergrad that so devoutly taught me to look at a person beyong their disesase, beyong their clinical manifestations..This is ironic really becasue before i saw this pt i went to a talk this morning about the inequality in health care..and i raised my hand to say that the strugle as fugture doctors is that so much focus ins put on the sciences that it becomes too easy to forget that yes there is a person begin all of this..medicine sucks the humanity out of you. it seems such a strange reality but it feels true. since i have entered meidicne i feel like i have become less caring, less invested.
i must not forget that the fundamental reason i entered medicine was to listen to the voices that are often left unheard..and i cant do that unless i actually listen to whath tye have to say..until i understand their story and see life from their perspective
because medicine is so much more about taking a history and making a diagnosis, its about building relationships that are meaniningful and significant and connecting on a deep level with another human being..
dear god,
let me be the type of doctor i ought to be. make me a good listener..make me an effective clinician and most important of all make me a kind, caring and compassionate healer. and until i am ready dont let me through because until i can provide the type of care i ought to be proving to pts i dont deserve to be a doctor.
