| one of my problems is i speak spanish. the thing is, i might just be the only doctor this patient has seen in a long, long while that they can actually understand, so i get a lot of "so what's going on with me anyway?" and i never have been able to resist hearing myself talk. so i blather on and on about how your sphincter works or why you tend to poop after you eat (this is the proctology clinic) or just what it was they were doing "back there" during all those surgeries you had over all those months and months and why it is so hard to get you well.
(quick aside, if when you go to the bathroom it is no big deal you should be grateful-- you never really appreciate your anus until something goes wrong with it, and it can go so very wrong-- so let's take a moment, shall we, to be grateful.)
another one of my problems is that one of my seniors told me not too long ago that the greatest gift you can give to your patients is your patience. so i've been making a game of doing that thing where you ask someone how they're doing and then shut up until they do. you should try it-- you get a whole lot of information-- but be prepared to be sitting there for a full five minutes, staring at a complete stranger while months and years of misery and confusion and pain and poverty and embarassment and loneliness spill out onto your desk and all over your day. then there are the tears and the hugging and the awkward realization that you will likely never see each other again (i'm only on proctology for a month and never again) and then the perhaps more awkward realization that i still have to stick my finger up their butt.
all this takes a while.
but if you actually do the talking parts, you have all the fun of hearing yourself sound smart plus the fun of hearing other people tell you stories. yesterday, someone told me what it was like to have delerium tremens. this is a rare catch, as people are often reluctant to talk about stuff that's embarassing, but i think the prospect of the glove and the lubricant looming in our shared future tends to loosen people up in this regard. another patient let me fish around in his life until we figured out the two things he was going to live for (important in a clinic full of colon cancer patients.)
and, to be perfectly honest, if you don't do those parts, then all you have at the end of the day is, well, a warm finger. |
