Doctors must preserve their empathy at all costs

It was several years ago. I was a first-year internal medicine resident. Keen, tired, overworked, and still idealistic. Mr. Smith was a 45-year-old lawyer who rolled into St. Paul’s Hospital Emergency room, while our medicine team was on intake. He was a healthy appearing lawyer who noted that for the past month he had become more short of breath performing his regular exercise. Things were especially bad for him during his morning treadmill workout, so he came in for evaluation. The ED started the standard work-up including blood work and a chest x-ray. The x-ray came back showing a large right-sided pleural effusion. A concerning finding in someone with no prior medical history. I presented the case to my senior resident. She went through the differential diagnosis with me. We were both concerned that this could represent cancer, and none of the cancer possibilities for this were particularly good. We explained the x-ray to Mr. Smith and described the thoracentesis procedure we would need to do. Continue reading ... Your patients are rating you online: How to respond. Manage your online reputation: A social media guide. Find out how.
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - Category: Journals (General) Authors: Tags: Physician Cancer Source Type: blogs