Is there a therapeutic basis for hope? Probably yes and this
is a must-read for every clinician. One patient’s review of his doctor.
Culled from: A Prescription For Healing, Newsweek, June
6, 1993
Hi, Doc! I saw your picture and the article about you in the
paper. Didn’t recognize you at first. Maybe because you were smiling. I never
saw you do that before. It changed your whole appearance. Pretty impressive
story. Congratulations! The paper spelled out how you’re responsible for providing
advanced surgical care from laser surgery to oncology. Wow!
You wouldn’t remember my face if you saw it. You did the job
on me six months ago. A lot of bladders must have passed under your scalpel in
the interim. Actually, you didn’t seem to recognize me then, until you had my
folder in your hand. I remember the file number. So that’s who this is from – Bladder
# 139.
I understand your not recognizing me. No hard feelings. In
your office you were always busy, running from one examining room to another.
Or you were on the phone: to the hospital, another doctor, a lab, another
patient. Nurses ran after you with papers. When you did get to me – you were
always at least a half hour late – you frowned over your Ben Franklin glasses
as though I had made some mistake. I was never a person, just a case.
I was scared, so I asked questions. But this seemed to annoy
you. My layman’s ignorance was so profound, your expression seemed to say,
that, really, there was no point in any discussion. I simply wouldn’t understand.
You pulled no punches. I guess in becoming a great surgeon
you forgot those early courses in doctor/patient relations: that patients tend
to panic and imagine the worst; that they need reassurance. You said outright
that I had two malignant tumors that must be removed at once. That meant
cancer. The word scared the hell out of me. I broke out in a sweat. But you
didn’t seem to notice. You frowned your usual frown and said that radiation or
chemotherapy were not options. You gave no explanation and I was too clobbered
to ask.
“Speak to my nurse,” you said. “She’ll
arrange the details, tell you what to do and set up the surgery date.”
Then you were out the door, your white coat flapping, as comforting as an
ice-water douche. You were certainly no kindly healer; rather a competent
master plumber, assaying a faulty drainage system and prescribing the necessary
repairs-to it, not me. There was no compassion in your kit. Maybe you think
that’s so much mush. Well, it’s not. Along with scanners, beepers, lasers,
faxes and imaging machines, hope and reassurance can save lives, reduce pain
and speed recovery. But that’s not your department, is it? That’s head stuff,
for psychiatrists and psychologists. You deal directly with the biology of
life.
Hope is biology, Doc. You did nothing to lessen my fears.
You didn’t reassure me by explaining (as my M.D. brother-in-law did, after it
was all over) that my type of tumor was common, easily excised and, if followed
by periodic inspection, not likely to shorten my life or impede my functions. A
doctor’s ability to reassure a patient can help to activate the body’s healing
system. Positive emotions, like faith, love and determination are biochemical
realities. It seems to me, Doc, that you overlooked the mind’s power to heal.
Because of you I suffered needlessly, night after night,
unable to sleep because of what lay ahead. I barely ate, my mind obsessed.
Would you eradicate all the cancer? Had it spread? Was this the beginning of
the end? How could my family get along without me?
Compassion is good medicine:
After the operation I lay worrying, in intermittent pain,
three tubes draining, sedating and replenishing me; every movement agony. Would
I make it? I asked for you, Doc. The nurse explained you had been in several
times while I was unconscious. Couldn’t you have managed one visit while I was
awake? Just to say that I was doing fine.
I know you’re not heartless. You did tell my wife the
operation was a success. But that’s all. How was I going to be? The nurse
explained that you had a very busy schedule, but if anything went wrong she
would call you. Like what? Everything was going wrong. One night I got tangled
in my tubes when I had a hurry call and couldn’t make it to the john. No one
told me that this was normal, that the medication frequently did that. I
thought I was dying. Somehow you might have found a minute to drop by, to tell
me the cancer was gone, how well my recovery was going. But you didn’t.
Compassion is not mere handholding. It is good medicine. Here’s a big word I’ve
just learned: psycho-neuroimmunology – the interaction between the brain, the
endocrine system and the immune system. In short: the degree to which belief
becomes biology.
Your hospital thinks you’re super. You’ve saved many lives
and made others more comfortable. You put in grueling days, carry a crushing
load, operate in life-or-death crises. Yet, there is no visible indication that
you have the slightest feeling for your patients. You are so immersed in the
functioning of the organism you are repairing that you seem to forget that each
is a person – a thinking creature of hopes and fears, joys and sorrows. And,
sometimes, like yourself, a leader in his chosen field.
What should you do about all this, Doc? Possibly nothing. But,
couldn’t you lighten your caseload? Use some of your precious time to listen to
your patients with an unhurried mind and an open heart? Try viewing them as
whole people, not merely the containers of malfunctioning parts? Understanding
all the factors (including the emotional) leading up to an illness can be as
important as the identification of the actual pathology.
Just as a thousand-mile journey begins with one step
forward, a step forward for you would be to erase that perpetual frown, that
expression of annoyance at uninformed, fearful laymen and replace it with a
smile and a few encouraging words. I know you can do it, Doc. Because I have
that smiling picture of you from the newspaper.
Source:
- Newsweek (1993, June 6). A Prescription For Healing. Available
from: https://www.newsweek.com/prescription-healing-193844