I had a patient recently who I sat with for a while since we were sending him over to the ER. Spending time like that with a patient never normally happens. I sometimes wonder about patients when I’m talking to them since I really only get to see the one side of them (obviously medical). For example, if you sat down with them at a meal, what little quirks would you notice about them? What sorts of things do they laugh about? What do they get annoyed about? I’m not sure how much of this would ever be medically relevant – and I’m sure you could make a great argument that it’s really important, but in the long run it’s most important to conform to the standard of care because in the ideal world that’s the medicine that’s proven to work and help people’s lives. Knowing that they laugh at knock knock jokes, hate waiting in line, and hold their fork funny isn’t going to change how you manage their disease most of the time.

Sometimes I feel frustrated, because I feel like I didn’t just go into medicine to treat one disease after another but this is where you run into the conflict of the dehumanization in medicine. I think it’s very important that you become desensitized, there’s far too much pain and suffering in this world to put on the plate. At the same time, I want to know that I treated a person, not just a condition or disease. Then mix in the reality of medicine where there are so many demands on your time. I sometimes just leave the day just feeling so dissatisfied with all the hard work I’ve done and the lack of caring I was able to communicate because I had to go do this or that. It’s a balance and one that I’m just really starting to see and understand.