TARA PARKER-POPE -- The physician blogger known as Dr. D, from the “Ask an M.D.†blog, writes about doctor and patient issues “from the doctor side of the equation,†as he puts it. But after recently suffering a severe leg break, he wrote about medical care from the patient’s point of view.
His conclusion: Being the patient is the hardest job in medicine.
We doctors think we have difficult work…. We are expected to be perfect and heroic while working with huge uncertainty. We try to protect your health, comfort and life, while you patients just lay back and get taken care of.
Lying here isn’t as relaxing as overworked docs think it is.
Just a few days as a hospital patient cleared my mind of any misconceptions. Abject helplessness combined with severe pain trumps everything. And helplessness is far worse than pain. Dr. D had never done anything as a doctor that caused more stress than allowing myself to be put to sleep for a major operation with a surgeon I had only spoken to for 30 seconds.
Being a patient also gave Dr. D insights into how patients describe pain, taking narcotics and doctors with poor communication skills. Go to the KevinMD blog to read the full column, “What This Doctor Learned When He Was a Patient.â€