Category: Lessons

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Education Lessons Medicine Nonfiction Observations Reflection

Cancer.

As a fourth year medical student I did my “sub-internship” in oncology. I hoped that this rotation would help me choose what specialty to pursue: internal medicine or psychiatry.

One of “my” patients was a woman with breast cancer that had spread to her liver and lungs. Fluffy brown hair fell to her shoulders. Wrinkles surrounded her puffy eyes that held jade green irises. Though she was in pain, she was patient and kind.

On the evening of her second day in the hospital, I came to her room and asked if there was anything else we could help with that day. Her pale, thin lips stretched into a sad smile.

“No, thank you,” she answered. “Have a good night.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said.

She was sleeping when I saw her the next morning, though awoke without a startle when I said her name. She kept her eyes closed as I placed the cool, metal diaphragm of the stethoscope on her chest and back. She murmured her thanks before I left her room.

As the attending oncologist, resident, intern, nurse, fellow medical student, and I approached her room later for formal rounds, she called to us.

“I can’t see!” she gasped. “I can’t see!”

We surrounded her bed and the attending began to ask her questions. He waved fingers in front of her face. He directed the beam from his penlight into her eyes.

“I can’t see! No, I can’t see!”

“But you could see yesterday, right?” he asked. She turned her head as if she was looking around at us, but her gaze was over our heads.

“Yes… but I can’t see now. Does this mean that I will never see my husband and daughters again? Is this permanent?”

I tried not to cry. The other medical student and the intern also looked away, their eyes welling with tears.

We learned later that the cancer had metastasized to her occipital lobe, the part of the brain that controls vision. Though her eyes were in good working order, the part of her brain that interpreted the electrochemical signals from her optic nerves was not. The cancer had stolen her sight.

You learn a lot of things in medical school: anatomy, physiology, pharmacology, and other concrete facts about human function. You also learn about human relations, communicating with people with different agendas, the system of health care, and other topics that fall under the “informal curriculum“.

You also learn how tenuous life is. You see women give birth to dead babies. You see children succumbing to cancer. Healthy adults get hit by stray bullets and drunk drivers. Heart attacks and strokes steal time and life away without making a sound.

You begin to recognize the blessings that you previously overlooked: I can eat all the cookies I want and I don’t have to take insulin. I don’t need a walker to get around. My fingertips and toes can feel the soft fur of a cat, the hot water coming out of the shower, and the zing of static electricity. I can breathe without difficulty and without having to lug an oxygen tank around. My arms and legs move when I want them to. My balance is intact.

You also realize, with some dread, that all of that can change in an instant. So you better enjoy the blessings while you got ’em.

My mother was sent to the hospital with urgency the day I returned to California to visit my parents. She was subsequently diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer.

I am grateful that I could advocate for my mother while she was in the hospital. I am also thankful that I could translate what was happening—not just from English to Chinese, but also from medical jargon to plain English—to my parents.

I was struck by the degree of confusion and uncertainty throughout her hospitalization. Things that I knew as a physician were not at all obvious to my parents. Things that I knew as a concerned family member were not at all obvious to the physicians.

I was and remain humbled.

As a consequence of this, upcoming posts will focus on how health care in hospitals work, what hospitals can do differently to help patients understand what is happening, and things that both medical staff and patients can do to make the hospital experience better for everyone.

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Consult-Liaison Education Informal-curriculum Lessons Medicine Observations

Informal Curriculum: Lesson 1.

It’s been over a year, but I haven’t forgotten about the Informal Curriculum.

The first recommendation in the informal curriculum in medicine, which I still believe is “paramount, the most difficult to define, and often challenging to implement”[1. It is no coincidence that a topic that is “paramount, … difficult to define, and … challenging to implement”, is also difficult to write about.] is to be a person.

What does this mean?

Be the best professional person you can be. Be a person who actively listens to patients, who shows empathy and emotions. Be courteous. Show humanity. Be a person.

Non-psychiatrist physicians seem to have an easier time with “being a person” than psychiatrists. Psychiatrists, as a population, can be weird. We can demonstrate exceptional skills at not being people. Sometimes we come across as intrusive, awkward, and odd.

I get it. I’ve had peculiar interactions with psychiatrists who knew I work as a psychiatrist. That might explain why the conversations were even more uncomfortable than expected. (Those are stories for another day.)

Do note that this recommendation exhorts you to be a professional person. This doesn’t mean that you tell your patients about your relationship or health problems, how crappy of a day you’re having, or why your political views are correct. That stuff makes you a person, too, but that doesn’t make you a professional person.

If patients are telling you things that worry them, be a person and acknowledge their worry. If they tell you something funny and it’s not inappropriate to laugh[2. Being a person does not mean that you toss clinical judgment and boundaries away. There are times when you shouldn’t smile and laugh, even if you want to. That topic is beyond the scope of this post.], smile and laugh. Talk with them like they’re people, not diseases or case studies.

Be a person.

Patients often want to share a connection with their physicians. Patients suffer and worry. They want to know that you care about their suffering or worry. That’s what actual people[3. Yes, there are anecdotes that people will share their woes with and find comfort in a computer program.] do: They care about the suffering and worry of others.

Be a person.

Why is this paramount? Why is this my first recommendation in the informal curriculum?

Because relentless forces exist in medical training and work that can transform you into a non-person.

You use words that most people don’t use. Most people don’t talk about MELD scores, Glasgow Coma Scales, or HIV classification systems. You see a lot of emotional and physical anguish. You see people who are ill. Sometimes they cry. Sometimes they scream. Sometimes you see parts of them that they will never see. Sometimes you see them die.

These are the things that can make you turn into a non-person.

So make an effort every day to be a person. If you’re not, none of the other suggestions in the informal curriculum will matter.

Categories
Education Lessons Medicine Observations Reflection

On Being a Person.

Upon looking at me, there’s no doubt about it: I am Asian.

My ethnicity occasionally becomes a topic of conversation with patients. Some immediately ask me, “Yang… that’s Chinese, right?”

Others take a different approach:

“Where are you from?”

“Where am I from?” (This is meant to clarify the question, as it can mean different things….)

“I mean, where did your family come from? What part of Asia?”

Patients with significant psychotic symptoms occasionally start conversations with me like this:

“Konnichiwa! Ichiban? Teriyaki?”

or they might say things like this:

“God has a good recipe for kim chi. Do you want to know what it is?”

For the most part, it is completely clear that these conversations arise from benign intentions: Patients are trying to make a connection.

Even if I speak English with a perfect California accent or wear clothes that blend in with the fashion of Seattle, I cannot mask that I am Asian. It is a significant part of my identity and I bring it with me wherever I go.

While in training psychiatrists are often encouraged to present oneself as a “blank slate”. This psychodynaimc argument states that the more neutral you are—in speech, attire, manner etc.—the more you can analyze the “transference”, or what reactions (emotions, thoughts, behaviors) patients have upon interacting with you. These reactions are the grist for the therapeutic mill.

We, however, can never present ourselves as blank slates. Patients—people!—notice both what we bring to an interaction and what is absent. People might have opinions about my ethnicity, my facial expressions, the tone of my voice, or the scribbles I make during the conversation. They might also have opinions if I make few utterances, maintain an expressionless face, and answer questions only with questions (as demonstrated above).

Instead of being a “blank slate”, sometimes the best thing we can do as psychiatrists is to be a person.[1. To be clear, a psychiatrist should be a professional person; this is no time for sloppiness or disregard for a patient’s wellbeing and dignity. Being the best professional person you can be is still being a person.]

If people have relationship difficulties, we can be an actual person so that the patient can learn how relationships with people can be different. If people come to treatment because they have challenging relationships with themselves, we can be an actual person so the patient can learn how these views of self affect not only them, but also other people. If people have tenuous connections with reality, we can be an actual person who provides accurate feedback about “reality” (and make very clear that we’re not trying to steal their internal organs, etc.).

Being an actual person can be scary. We might worry what people (colleagues, patients, others) think of us. However, that vulnerability and authenticity we bring as people to the clinical interaction might be the most healing and inspiring to our patients.

Categories
Lessons Medicine Nonfiction Reflection

A Dream.

A few days before I learned what happened, I had a dream about you. When I awoke, my heart felt like a bird flapping its wings inside the cage of my ribs.

The details had vanished. Only anxiety remained.

I gasped when I learned what happened. I suddenly remembered the little details, the things that never made it into the clinical notes: You liked your coffee black. You read the Wall Street Journal. You missed driving your sports car.

Where did you kill yourself? Did you get a motel room? Were you outside? What time of day was it?

You certainly planned this. When did you make the final decision? Did you waver? Did you want to waver?

They say that there are two kinds of psychiatrists: The kind who have never had a patient commit suicide, and the kind who have had patients kill themselves.

I now belong to the second group. We all join the second group at some point.

I wish you hadn’t killed yourself.

I thank you for what you have taught me, both in life and in death.

I wish you had the peace in life that you thought was only available in death.

May peace be with you now.

Categories
Education Lessons Medicine Policy

Involuntary Commitment (VI).

Recall in the second scenario the man who was throwing his furniture out of his apartment due to concerns that someone or something was trying to take over his room. How would you apply involuntary commitment criteria here?

1. Does this person want to harm himself or someone else?

There isn’t compelling evidence that he wanted to harm himself—if anything, he suggested that his behaviors were attempts at self-preservation.

Though he never said that he wanted to harm someone else, his behavior was inadvertently putting other people in danger: He had already thrown stuff out the window, where it could have injured people on the sidewalk. He also threw a guitar in your direction, though, thankfully, it didn’t hit you.

2. How imminent is this risk of harm to self or others?

Imminent. He does not appear to be responding to direction to stop throwing things and perhaps it is only luck that the items he has thrown has not hurt anyone.

3. Are these behaviors due to a psychiatric condition?

Probably.

Given what we know about his history and the timeline of events, it seems likely that these behaviors are due to a psychiatric condition. However, these behaviors could feasibly be due to drug use or medical problems.

Related: Will hospitalization help treat the underlying psychiatric condition?

Probably. Hospitalization has historically helped this man recover from his acute symptoms.

What actually happened?

After the guitar crashed into the wall, other people—neighbors, staff—arrived. The man had retreated back into his room and continued to shout: “People don’t UNDERSTAND none of this is MINE how did this even HAPPEN why did I think it was OKAY I won’t let it happen again I won’t let it happen again—”

After tucking myself around the corner, I shooed away the neighbors; they needed to get out of there for their own safety. A social worker used her hands to mime making a phone call, her eyebrows raised as if asking a question. I nodded.

“Hey,” I said in a quiet voice[1. The next time you’re trying to lower the volume of someone else’s voice, try lowering the volume of your own voice. It’s hard to yell when the other person is barely audible.], “I’m sorry you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just so you know, though, we’re calling 911. I’m worried about you.”

He grabbed the clock off of the wall with one hand and a framed photo of his sister and him with the other and threw both out the window. Both shattered when they hit the sidewalk.

“I DON’T CARE you can do whatever the F@#$ you want I just NEED to get rid of all this SH!T—”

The rest of us waited.

Before the police and paramedics arrived, he had thrown a floor lamp, more silverware, and much of his clothing out the window. Papers were scattered on the floor. He smashed all the mirrors in his apartment. He tore the curtains from the walls. He threw several pieces of fruit, one remote control, and his pillows out into the hallway.

I braced myself as the police appeared in the hallway. Please cooperate… please cooperate… I hope the cops won’t be jerks…

The social worker had already briefed the police and paramedics about the situation.

“You Dr. Yang?” an officer asked. I nodded.

“And that’s the guy?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll take it from here. Can you write an affidavit?”[2. An affidavit is a written declaration that is used in court, in this case to hospitalize this man against his will. The police were asking me to write the affidavit because of my credential and because of my relationship with the patient. This affidavit included my opinion that he was a danger to others, given that he had thrown a guitar at me and had continuously thrown items out of his window.]

He was rummaging through his closet when the officers knocked on the door. He looked over his shoulder and paused as the officers greeted him. A few beats of silence followed.

“OH GOD WHY WON’T THEY LEAVE ME ALONE?” the man suddenly bawled. He fell to the ground and began to weep. After glancing at each other and then me, the officers and paramedics walked in.

He initially balked at their overtures about transport to the hospital, though he ultimately agreed. He choked on his sobs on the gurney as the paramedics wheeled him down the hallway.

He was in the hospital for over a month.

At our next appointment, he sat in the chair, his eyes glazed over, his body twenty pounds heavier.

“I’m sorry about what happened that day,” he said.

“That’s okay,” I murmured. “I’m glad you’re here.”