When the Doctor is Sick

Gaining Insights into Patient Experience

I don't think that only veterans should be allowed to comment on wars and veteran issues, and I don't think that all heart specialists have to have had heart attacks themselves, but in 36 years of practicing medicine, I have to admit that my personal illnesses have given me great and needed insight into what indignities patients must experience.  Only by being a patient oneself, and bearing the slings and arrows of the medical-industrial complex does one gain this insight.

As a young surgical resident, I developed a need for emergency surgery myself, and was shocked to learn that several tests and procedures which for years I'd assured patients "didn't hurt a bit" were actually somewhat painful. Similar epiphanies came my way over the years with severe lumbar spasm, Type 2 Diabetes, stress fractures, a posterior nasal bleed, cardiac dysrhythmias, and most recently a limb-threatening infection in my diabetic foot.  All were managed successfully.  All made me a better clinician--and a better doctor.

Patients feel pain (the origin of the term patient), patients have fears and uncertainties.  Some need very skilled care.  All need superb communication...and rarely receive it.  I have never "left AMA" (medical jargon for leaving the hospital against medical advice), but I have been tempted to on several occasions.  Never due to a lack of physician skills, but always due to a lack of physician communication.
  
Veterinarian-author James Herriot wrote that he was told by his mentor that the primary rule of veterinary practice was "You must attend!"  That is, the doctor had to be available for communication always.  People need to know what is going on, and they can't know that if they don't see the doctor, or otherwise hear from him, in a timely fashion.  As young doctors we used to be told that the "A's of Medical Practice" were availability, affability, and ability--in that order.  Be there, be nice, and if you know your stuff, that helps too.

Good rules that still apply.