What Doctors Learn From Patients
This week's newsletter focuses on stories written by doctors. They all describe the profound impact their patients have had on them. Ask any doctor and they will have a story about patients they will never forget.
One of my most vivid patient memories is from my internship. I took care of a patient just a little older than me. He was dying of lymphoma - his cancer no longer responded to chemotherapy. His platelet counts kept falling to dangerously low levels requiring me to "push" platelets into his circulation via a syringe. This was necessary to keep him from having a dangerous bleeding episode.
I spent many hours at his bedside over the course of several weeks before he died. We talked about everything. He told me about his family and his life before getting sick. We talked about his hopes for the future, the things he hoped to do again once he was better. He asked me about my life and I told him about my love of medicine and what it was like to be an intern and the single mother of a 5-year-old son.
One day, he turned to me and said, "I love you." I was so surprised that to this day I don't remember what I said back to him. I hope that I said that I loved him too. But I can't be sure. The one thing I do know for sure is that he left me with life-long memories of the time I got to spend with him. And that, I believe, is a form of love.
The Indomitable Spirit of My Dying Patient
Sam Kant, MD, a family doctor in rural Ireland met Andy, a 73-year-old country farmer at the beginning of his illness - progressive renal failure. The farmer knew what he wanted (to stay in his community and continue his work with refugees) and he knew what he didn't (dialysis). He cared for him to the end. Along the way, he was reminded that "the real prize [in medicine] is attending to those that made us go into the profession in the first place." You will want to read this poignant story, The Indomitable Spirit of My Dying Patient, more than once.
My First Patient, My First Death
Nichole Boisvert, MD is a family medicine physician in Northern California. She wrote this story when she was a medical student. In it, she recalls the impact of her first death - an experience I believe all doctors remember even though we are taught to be stoic.
She describes in moving detail her first encounter with Susanna who was severely ill but still awake. She takes you through her progression into unconsciousness and finally to her death. And, she tells of a moving encounter with Susanna's children when she attended her funeral. Filled with emotion, this story will live with you for a long time. You can read My First Patient, My First Death here.
A Fatal Medical Error: Lack of Care or Lack of Caring?
Maggi Cary, MD, another family physician, shares the story of her patient and friend, Bob, who likely died from an undiagnosed toxic reaction to a drug he was given. It was a fatal medical error. She wondered at the time if he died from A Lack of Care or A Lack of Caring. She writes, "Looking back on all my work in clinical care, regulation, health policy, public health, and business, through my journey through nearly every component of the medical industry, a driving force and motivating factor in all my work was my friend Bob and the medical error that killed him."
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