I recently realized that I had not written anything for this blog in a while… I guess between health stuff, brain fog, and recovering from a year of non-stop writing for college, I’ve been a little occupied with being lazy :p. However, I have a lot of stuff stock piled on my computer. This one is a “throwback,” so to speak. I wrote it about two years ago (spring 2012… I would have been 19 at the time) for a medical humanities class. I have a lot more of similar responses like this and I think I might slowly pull them out of the depths of my hard drive and start putting them on my blog :).
***
I found Dr. M’s speech this past Tuesday night a very honest and direct way of saying many important things that are often left unsaid. He spoke of aspects of medicine that are clearly not learned through a classroom or a textbook. Not only did he speak of such aspects including sharing, listening, maintaining hope, and owning up to limitations, but he also made it clear that these things were just as, if not more, important than actually carrying out a medical procedure.
The opening lines he spoke about his wife were sad, yet very moving and insightful. He immediately put himself in a vulnerable position by opening about the about his wife’s death. I thought that the way Dr. M began his speech summarized what I believe he was essentially saying; open up, talk with one another, and face life and thus death as well, as it is a part of life. His story raises many significant points about being a doctor; being there for the patient, truly empathizing with them and accepting that life has a limit that even the best of doctors cannot change. “I could keep her (his wife) from dying short of breath,” said Dr. M, “but I couldn’t keep her from dying.”
What I found to be one of the most interesting subjects that Dr. M discussed was the idea of listening, or “hearing the screams.” He taps into the complex subject by beginning with story about a boy, Nick, who couldn’t stand to hear the screams of a woman in a very painful labor. Nick can hardly bear her screams, but his dad cannot hear them at all. The woman’s husband has silently slit his own throat in the other room. He then concluded that, “all of us need help to hear the screams; some are audible, some are not,” which caused me to stop and think about the pure truth in these words. We all need help to listen to one another from time to time. And when I say listen, I mean really hear a person. So much pain in this world comes from misunderstanding and a failure to communicate. Perhaps that failure to communicate is not so much in people’s thoughts, actions or words as it is their ability to truly listen to what others have to say. I think about how eager people are to open up and share the moment they have a sense of trust in someone else or know that they will be heard. That alone is a powerful thing; so powerful that it should be used in medicine, when trying to treat a patient’s illness. Doctors especially should strive to detect the cry of a patient, whether it is physical or emotional. However this is not only true for doctors; we should all try to listen to those around us more and learn to empathize with others.
I think about how often we tell people “not to worry,” in comparison to how often we place ourselves in their position and attempt to feel what they are feeling, and these two responses to the worries of others are quite disproportionate. I never thought of it like that before Dr. M mentioned it, but essentially telling someone “not to worry,” is almost pretending that his or her worry does not exist or is not important enough to pay attention to. All worries should be heard, not matter how small. This is especially true in a medical setting when someone’s health is in question. There is nothing scarier than losing one’s health and doctors should hear these worries and do their best to truly understand them and address them properly.
So much of what Dr. M discussed was important in not only becoming a doctor, but experiencing life as well. We are all human. And just as he said, we all have similar thoughts, fears, emotions, and dreams; “everything is not so new.” There is hardly an experience or feeling in this world that is not shared by others. However we often think otherwise; we often think, “it is only me, no one else has experienced something like this or feels this way.” And perhaps the problem is that, for the most part, people keep to themselves their inner most thoughts and feelings when they are not “healthy and happy” because they are afraid when they do open up they will be ridiculed or considered “weak.” Sometimes there is one brave person who speaks up about their experiences and causes others to stop and recognize, “hey, I can relate to that,” or “that is how I felt—I thought I was the only one!” It is amazing to see how much people come together when one person has the courage to become vulnerable for a moment. Doctors should be aware of this. They need not dismiss the significance of each individual’s thoughts or concerns, however they do need to remind patients that nothing is quite so new and that they are not alone. Reducing feelings of isolation can have a tremendous impact on recovering from any illness.
We all live, we all laugh, we all cry and we all die. It is part of being human. I have been told from a very young age that life is a gift and that life has different stages. When I was very little my mom used to talk about life like the hours in a day. I was in the “morning” phases of my life, the sun rising, so much left to see and do. She herself in the “noon” phase of life, past the morning, with a half a day’s worth of accomplishment, still more to come. My grandfather, she said, was in the “evening” phase of his life, looking back at the day, watching a beautiful sunset, cherishing every last minute of sunlight. The different phases of life, while each different, are equally important in the process of living, including one’s death, the very end of the “day.” People often run from the idea of death, I have even seen some people “disappear” when family members or friends of mine were dying. Seeing someone else die can conjures up feelings of our own mortality and thus causes one to distance himself or herself from the dying person. But, from the words I heard Dr. M speak, I have the sense that doctors should do the opposite. Doctors should, of course, treat the patient as best as they are able, but not run from the idea of death. Because we are all human and all going to experience death, doctors should understand universal mortality to better identify with and empathize with their patients—not turn away from them.
I have also been told that in life, beginnings are rough, endings are sad, but it is what is in the middle that really counts. Perhaps that is what doctors try to do, preserve that “middle” for as long as possible. Sometimes there is a cure and sometimes there is not, but presence and commitment are essentials. Doctors cannot prevent death, but they can try to “prevent premature death and prevent physical and emotional suffering,” thus, rounding out the time spent “in the middle,” a place with thousands of tiny moments all clustered together. Those tiny moments, interactions, and experiences are what have the ability to bring us closer together, if we so choose.
No comments:
Post a Comment