I have a friend in the hospital. He is also a physician. When he first arrived, there was significant concern that his symptoms indicated something monstrous (although it continues to be frightening, it is not as bad as they thought). He knew to be scared when he heard the overhead page calling the emergency team to treat his suspected condition. The physician overseeing his care saw his fear and placed a hand on his shoulder. She then said that they will take good care of him. This, he told me, meant the world to him.
As a physician, he knew that to navigate disease is daunting even by experts. Despite the constant push for data and protocol, the art of medicine - action guided by the inarticulable and seemingly imperceptible - is very much alive and well. (The first thing you learn as a physician is "sick" or "not sick" with just a look.) He knew that she had little power to direct his future, but still her words put him at ease.
It is difficult to accept when things are out of your control despite the fact that most everything is. His doctor knew this, so she took control for him. She made it so he did not have to act. He simply had to be (is this true authenticity?). I think, in the end, that is our primary jobs as physicians: to provide opportunities for surrender.
And your primary job as my friend, it seems, is to help me see things in a new way.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant.
Very insightful. The simple act of being IS true authenticity. Maybe by speaking the words, "you're going to be OK" we open that potential for our patients. I've also heard some physicians tell their patients, especially after trauma, that "The injury is over, and you're already healing yourself."
ReplyDeleteI will try to keep this brief and start a blog of my own to address these issues. That I too struggle with, to a problematic extent. Ask my family about me and shrimp.
ReplyDeleteI think the most powerful idea in religion is the surrender to God/Jesus. The peace and calm in surrender. Letting Jesus take the wheel, as it were.
The version I take as my own, and I lie to myself is secular, is from my favorite yoga instructor. She used to talk to us about the power of surrender during class. Surrender to the moment, to the feeling, to the experience good or bad. "This is what I have to feel. Now. It will pass. Emotions always do."
I would feel better about implying I can do this, if I hadn't just eaten enough to envelope my stress in a warm, full stomach and enough to insure that I will not be getting closer to "ideal" weight this week.