Many people live under the impression that doctors are clever. In most cases this is true. Many doctors can churn out a wave of facts about every condition you wish you didn't know about. Sometimes however- taking time to go back to basics can make all the difference to the patients we treat.Yesterday I visited the hospital for a clinical skills practice session where an old and wise doctor teaches us some of the tricks of the trade and advice on some of our basic skills like history taking and examining. I spent a good half an hour sitting with a very pleasant lady who had been in hospital over the weekend and was being treated for - as her notes put it - a 'severe septic episode'.
This woman shared her story with me and then allowed me to examine her, knowing this exercise was for my own learning and wouldn't result in any better treatment for her. Finally at the end she admitted that although she had been told she was very lucky to have been brought into hospital and treated when she was, she didn't really know what had happened to her.
Now I'm one for keeping things simple - explain something to me in short english words and I'm a happy student. This woman knew she had had a chest infection, that it had got worse causing her to have shivers and feel rotten, and that now she was in a hospital and they were pumping drugs into her arm.
All it took was for me in my best student's english to tell this woman that the infection had gone into her blood and that was why they were putting antibiotics into her blood to treat it. The dots were joined up and she was a happy woman!
No-one had taken 2 minutes to explain this to her in the 4 days she had been in hospital!
You can be as clever as you like, but that means nothing to your patients unless you can talk to them like a human being!
anyway - rant over :-)
