I'm only human

I'm sure all of us have heard stories of how people exploit their clients or customers for mercenary purposes. Lawyers. Pharmacists. Promoters. Businessmen. Insurance agents. And even hawkers. They have a variety of unscrupulous ways to manipulate their clients for their personal gains, legally, of course.

Nonetheless, if a doctor is involved in the aforementioned misconduct, he is deemed unethical and despicable. You're not even supposed to order uncessary investigations, say, for instance, obtaining the coagulation profile of a lady with fibroadenoma as a pre-operative assessment if you haven't found anything significant in her history that would suggest the presence of a bleeding tendency.

I've attended numerous lectures on ethics, so much so that, even speaking impolitely to a patient when I'm PMS-ing feels like a total breach of ethics.

Most patients are very understanding and kind. They have faith in my clinical acumen despite the fact that I'm just an obscure medical student. They contribute a lot to my learning experience and have deeply touched my heart in many ways. I wonder if I'll ever have the honour to repay their generosity.

Understanding human behaviour is prerequisite to developing a good rapport with a patient. The rule of thumb is to be polite, and smile genuinely. And never judge a patient. Whether he's an affluent businessman or a peasant with a minuscule monthly salary of RM 300, he can always tell if you're judging him. He can sense it in your nonverbal actions and will clamp up, hampering you from attaining a detailed history and diagnosis. And if this happens during your exam, you're as good as dead.

Unfortunately, there's a minority of patients who really really drive me crazy. It'll take forever to elaborate on how they irritate me. You can always sense it when they really want you to fuck off. After all, they're not the only ones with the ability to interpret nonverbal messages. By right, I'm not supposed to feel the least annoyed. Because medicine is a noble profession. Because, ethically and morally speaking, it's wrong. Because it makes me seem unfit for the profession.

But then, I'm only human.

All I can do is put on a bogus smile and hope my resentment goes unnoticed.

It's that gentleman with a bleeding peptic ulcer complicated with severe anemia and his wife that made me write this. I felt really upset and angry. They were really mean. I remember walking away without even saying thank you. There's only so much you could expect from a barely educated patient, I silently scoffed.

I feel apologetic and conscience-stricken now. But, I'm only human. I will learn to handle such a situation more professionally in time to come.

I went to the pool that afternoon. Swam 40 laps. Shopped to my heart's content in the evening and ended buying clothes even though my wardrobe is already overflowing with them.

This is probably unrelated. But, yes, I'm a rather messy person. I simply don't have the patience to fold my clothes. A major turn off I guess. Yet, it's not like I'm going to meet my potential boyfriend on blogosphere. :)