Tag Archives: physician

On Plumbing and Other Disciplines

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NaBloPoMo 2016, Letters to Patients, Day 3

To My Patients With Diverse Occupations:

What a pleasure and an education to know you!

I think none of you are plumbers, though.  But I remember the first time I met a plumber—it was in college, a friend of a friend.  To this day I wonder if he thought I was a little crazy—I grilled him mercilessly about his work.  Was it like “Moonstruck,” is copper really always better?  What’s the grossest thing you’ve ever seen?  What do you need to know, is there plumbing school?  How do you know when you can’t do a job?  What equipment do you carry around?

I have only ever known medicine, you see.  I resisted at first—so typical, the Chinese kid who wants to be a doctor.  But then I volunteered to be a health aide in college—I got to move into the dorm a week early that way.  And it was inevitable, I was hooked!  So I went ‘straight through,’ as they say—biology/pre-med, no gap years, no real life working experience before medical school.

Traders, dog trainers, book editors, retail managers, accountants, nurses, call center agents, firefighters, small business owners, truck drivers, professors, musicians, actuaries—you all have such interesting lives!  One of my favorite parts of the history is when I get to hear what you do for a living, because it’s so different from my own.  So please be patient when I interrogate you about your work, I’m just so curious!  How do you spend your days?  What makes a great day for you?  What makes it hard?  What are the greatest sources of stress and meaning in your work/career/vocation?  What do you love about it?  Would you choose it again?

This curiosity stems from my deep desire to relate.  In your work, people probably present you with problems.  You apply specific expertise to diagnose the underlying condition.  You determine the most appropriate or attainable solution, and map out a path to achieve it.  You take some responsibility for the result, while recognizing that your coworkers must also participate fully for the team to succeed.  On your best days, the collaborative effort yields not only the desired outcome, but also a deepened connection between people.  It’s not so different for me.

It’s easy to perceive a distance between you and me, between patients and physicians.  Medicine can seem elitist sometimes, what with the onerous entrance exams, the stiff competition for school admission, and the prolonged and grueling training.  But in the end I bet we share more experiences than we realize.  I’m just here to use my little heap of knowledge and skills to help others, and I know that’s what you do, too.

 

On Primary Care

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NaBloPoMo 2016, Letters to Pateints, Day 2

To Those Who Disdain Primary Care:

Maybe you don’t know what you’re missing.

“I don’t need a doctor, I never get sick.”  And yet, optimum health means so much more than the absence of illness.  I am called to steward your health as a whole person.  I value the chance to know you as such.  I seek to understand your temperament, your history, your past experiences, and how they influence your current perceptions and choices.  That is how I help you optimize your health—by reflecting your own patterns back to you, so you may determine how they serve you, and when they need updating.

So often our daily routines take the path of least resistance, like spring runoff tumbling inevitably downhill between the rocks and shrub roots of a mountainside.  Without attention and navigation, topsoil erodes and the landscape can get disorganized, unstable.  But with some intention and guidance, we can channel your energy and activities toward the mighty river of health.  There your strengths and motivation preserve the ecosystem that is your best you, for the long journey of life.

As a general internist, I have the privilege of getting the first call when something takes you down.  I get to hear the story first, to initiate the investigation.  If I know you already, I can apply history and context in the most personalized way.  Together we can examine and understand the mudslide triggers (there’s almost always at least one).  We can make an appropriate plan to slow the erosion, and then rebuild.  With each episode, our tools sharpen.  We become a team.

I relish the chance to help you dig deeper into your own capacities for self-care.  Each encounter is an opportunity to share and connect, in service of your long term health.  I want you to live not just to be an old man or woman, but a STRONG old man or woman.

But to do that, I need to know you starting now.  I need to connect with you early and often, in good times and bad.  It’s a relationship like any other.  I can’t help unless I see, hear, and understand.  There is no substitute for time and contact.  So think about it.  I’m here to help.

NaBloPoMo, Here We Come!

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The Cubs have won game 5 of the World Series.  Halloween is tomorrow.  In two days I will commit to publishing a post a day for 30 days.  Woo hoooooooo, bring it!!  It’s been a year since I tried this the first time, and I almost made it—26, I believe, and a few may have been reblogs of others’ work…  I felt embarrassed about the ‘failure.’  But then I got through the A to Z Challenge by the skin of my teeth this past April (last post at 11:30pm on April 30th), and that was much more fun.  So I’m trying again, yaaay!

I launched this blog 18 months ago to address physician-patient relationship.  I aimed to discuss communication, self-awareness, and emotional intelligence, as tools to rekindle that trusting, continuous bond that so many of us miss in medicine today.  Since then I have come around to the original theme occasionally, but not nearly as often as I had intended.  So I take this annual blogging event as an opportunity to refocus and try something new.

For Na Bo Po Mo 2016, I intend to write 30 letters to patients.  Some will echo routine conversations; others may reflect my musings on this vocation.  I may examine observations on the state of medicine today.  Or other things, who knows?  I will at least attempt to convey my deep love for the work and the people.  Maybe I can help fellow physicians and patients connect, or perhaps lend some perspective and awareness.

There is a lightness to trial and error.  When you try something new, you make a commitment, set an endpoint, and decide how you will measure the outcome.  But you don’t have to attach yourself to a particular outcome, just the process.  I commit to try my best and have fun, and see what comes out, in fewer than 500 words per post.  I wonder where this will lead?  Maybe it will turn into a monthly newsletter for my own patients?  A book?  A column somewhere?  Anything is possible!  I’ll never know until I try, and I like the openness of the adventure.

I hope you will visit often, and leave your thoughtful comments.

Let the journey begin!