Posted in neurology these days. Its amazing how much one can learn. And i am not talking about just the subject. I am talking about life in general. You get so many people around you every day. If one simply listens to someones story nicely and patiently, its amazing how individuals can teach each other.
Today i had a grand round. Sir is really regular with these rounds. There i was, standing at the bedside of the patient and facing my teacher and my guide, trying to face the volley of his questions- answering some. The rest were bouncers (there is simply no other suitable term). And he told us how a simple mistake might have slowly caused the patient to have deteriorated from a very small condition, to the large syndromic disease he is now admitted for with us. The learning to most of us was the history, examination and management of the patient. My mind unfortunately also kept registering the kind way he tried to keep soothing the patient, the lost art in medical sciences- the art of 'touch'. And i could actually see and feel the comfort on the face of the patient whom i had treated just two hours earlier trying to put him out of his misery, and failing drastically. The cramped time schedule did just not allow me to think about the artistic part of my training. No painkillers, no sedatives, no antibiotics could have brought the relief that i saw at that time. It was trust that one man had in another. A trust that one man would do everything in his power to help the second man. I have felt that our patient himself knows some how that he cannot hope to improve to his pre disease 100%. Yet he seemed relieved, satisfied, and content. How could one man inspire confidence in another without having said a word? I know from the training I recieved from the great man that the patient would never fully recover. There is ample data that says that the medications, the prescription I wrote out two hours earlier was perfectly suitable. And yet I had failed, and my teacher had relieved the patient without having said a word.
What did I learn besides the clinical parts, including the importance of art of touch?
TRUST.
Trust those that ought to be trusted.
It leaves you peaceful.
Today i had a grand round. Sir is really regular with these rounds. There i was, standing at the bedside of the patient and facing my teacher and my guide, trying to face the volley of his questions- answering some. The rest were bouncers (there is simply no other suitable term). And he told us how a simple mistake might have slowly caused the patient to have deteriorated from a very small condition, to the large syndromic disease he is now admitted for with us. The learning to most of us was the history, examination and management of the patient. My mind unfortunately also kept registering the kind way he tried to keep soothing the patient, the lost art in medical sciences- the art of 'touch'. And i could actually see and feel the comfort on the face of the patient whom i had treated just two hours earlier trying to put him out of his misery, and failing drastically. The cramped time schedule did just not allow me to think about the artistic part of my training. No painkillers, no sedatives, no antibiotics could have brought the relief that i saw at that time. It was trust that one man had in another. A trust that one man would do everything in his power to help the second man. I have felt that our patient himself knows some how that he cannot hope to improve to his pre disease 100%. Yet he seemed relieved, satisfied, and content. How could one man inspire confidence in another without having said a word? I know from the training I recieved from the great man that the patient would never fully recover. There is ample data that says that the medications, the prescription I wrote out two hours earlier was perfectly suitable. And yet I had failed, and my teacher had relieved the patient without having said a word.
What did I learn besides the clinical parts, including the importance of art of touch?
TRUST.
Trust those that ought to be trusted.
It leaves you peaceful.
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