The art of medicine is slowly being pushed out. Is that a good thing?

One late evening on pediatrics call, a frantic young couple brought in their few weeks old baby. She had spiked a fever which refused to go down and was fussier than normal. The cause of her symptoms could have been anything — at best, a mild respiratory infection, in which case we would simply watch her and manage her symptoms, but at worst, it could be meningitis, an infection attacking the membrane covering her spinal cord and brain. It’s a grave condition that would be fatal if left undiagnosed, but diagnosing it meant doing a lumbar puncture, an extremely invasive procedure for anyone, let alone a baby, involving inserting a needle into the spinal column. The situation was a classic dilemma: to tap or not to tap. After an hour of deliberation with the residents, I found myself holding down a writhing and crying infant by her legs and torso and while resident stuck a needle into her lumbar spine. After a few attempts, we finally drew enough spinal fluid for analysis. The next morning, the lab results came back — she didn’t have meningitis after all. Did we make the wrong decision by putting the baby and her parents through needless suffering and risk? When science fails to give us right answers, we’re forced to resort to our instincts, to dig deep into our clinical memory banks for guidance and have faith that our training was sufficient. And that ambiguity and nuance, as our attending at the time told us, capture the art of medicine and is what drew me ...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Education Mobile health Primary Care Source Type: blogs