Patient encounters

• Ran into a patient that I had yesterday. He was very kind, actually way too kind - attributing me to his getting well. It was the resident and the antibiotics (truly, not being modest here) that helped him and I just happened to be the go-between. Anyway, it was nice if somewhat surprising to have him stop me in the grocery store to say ‘hi’. And while I was pleased with myself for remembering his name, it wasn’t until several hours later that I realized I had totally forgotten to thank him for the thank you card & Starbucks gift certificate he’d dropped off for my resident and I in emergency after he was discharged. Duh. Funny that he said “You must be almost done now, aren’t you?”. Nope, no where near done, let me tell you. It’s a good thing too – a helluva lot of info to cram into my brain yet just to have the basics down.

• As for my latest stint in ENT surgery – interesting. My preceptor is my age (exactly) and super cool. He’s a great teacher too – just the right mix of questions & answers. I like it. And useful for all the ears, noses & mouths I’ll be looking at as a family doctor. J I hope. (in more ways than one!)

• Today I had a bit of an uncomfortable situation. One of the other doctors in the office pulled me into the room with his patient to show me some interesting pathology. He wanted me to see a tongue cancer which had metastasized that sprang up on a long time smoker within months (I can’t emphasize enough – DO NOT SMOKE and if you do, quit forever as soon as possible!). As the doctor showed me the findings on exam and the CAT scan showing spread to his neck, I wasn’t sure how much the patient had been told BEFORE I entered the room. As I looked at the CAT scan, the patient was sitting behind us and I could see his reflection in the computer screen. I was surprised to see him turned away from us vs looking at the computer screen, as he seemed to not be interested in looking at his scan. Then I heard him sniffling/blowing his nose a little and it all came clear. He was crying and trying to hide it from us while he didn’t think we’d notice (the doctor I was with didn’t notice, but I did). I felt so bad for him to be hearing about his diagnosis and prognosis as the doctor talked to me about it, rather than to him, the patient, directly. I felt pretty crappy about the whole thing, and yet it’s pretty difficult to control that situation as a student. Bleh.