doctor-patient communication Archives - Page 2 of 9

Microcalcifications

Carol Scott-Conner October 1, 2021 6 Comments

A cluster, I say,
so small – see? I can cover it
with the tip of my finger. Tiny little
calcifications. I show
you the mammogram.

A Doctor’s Visit

Arya F. Jenkins September 14, 2021 13 Comments

My new doctor enters the examining room where I have been waiting for him, seated on a rumpled paper sheet at the edge of a brown leather lounge chair. Behind the doctor’s blue mask, he is wearing a furrowed brow of worry.

Something Stronger

Matt Hagerman July 9, 2021 10 Comments

you said he likes it dark in the morning. every morning
he made black coffee by the light through the window over the sink
well anyway he used to. well anyway that’s why it’s so dark in here beg your pardon
the monitor beeped and i ate my yawn and said no problem almost my lunchtime anyway
you laughed and i laughed but he did not see the joke
i’d seen his mri i wondered if he could see anything at all out of that eye
seventy-four-year-old male temporal mass first start case
you sipped coffee from a styrofoam cup. you said he liked to garden
likes to garden

you got quiet for a while then

Final Appeal

Lea Ratliff May 14, 2021 17 Comments

“He basically killed me,” Sam said flatly, sitting my office. “I don’t want to talk to him.”

I nodded sadly with understanding as his on-demand oxygen hissed away each moment, like the ticking of a clock. Why would a patient want to speak to a doctor who’d missed his diagnosis? Why should he?

Saying the D-Word

Charlotte Grinberg June 12, 2020 10 Comments

It was late in the evening, and I was ready to start my night shift as an intern in the intensive-care unit. I sought out my fellow intern, who was finishing his shift, so that we could perform signout–the ritual of passing the patients’ information from one clinician to the next.

“Mrs. Klein in Bed 15 might go,” he whispered.

“Go? Go where?” I asked. “It’s 10 o’clock at night.”

“I mean she might go away.” He wasn’t making eye contact with me.

Back Pain

William Toms June 5, 2020 3 Comments

A 77-year-old woman presents with back pain.
No trauma. No radiation. No red flags.
ROS* otherwise surprisingly negative.
Her exam is unremarkable, actually pretty darn good.
FROM, negative SLR, full distal strength, sensation and DTRs.*

After the usual cautions I reassure her,
prescribe activity, no meds and the tincture of time.
She is fine with that, appreciative and pleasant.
Then she says, “Should I talk to my sister?”
They are estranged, as usual about who got Mom’s whatever.
Her sister is 86, this has been going on for a long time.
She talks. I listen.
She says, “I should call her, shouldn’t I?”
I let her answer her own

Greetings and Salutations

Frederick Guggenheim February 28, 2020 12 Comments

I have seen tribesmen in the West African country of Mali meet each other on a narrow dirt path and stop to spend several minutes chanting highly scripted greetings. When they part, shortly afterwards, there is an equally elaborate farewell.

As a psychiatrist and medical educator, I’ve seen my colleagues carrying out a parallel ritual: Two doctors hurriedly passing each other in a hospital hallway and cheerily but tersely saying, “How are you?”–neither slowing down to hear the other’s response. The greeting is equally formalized; it’s just shorter.

Last Day

Daniel Becker January 31, 2020 1 Comment

It’s my job to empty a plastic bag
filled with meds both past and present
and read out loud the labels of those we stopped,

and explain why, and while we’re on why
why he needs oxygen at night, and the rescue inhaler.
Between pills it’s my job to ask in a generic way

about life outside the clinic? He takes out his phone
because his story needs a prop.
His ex called yesterday, Only one ex, one’s enough,

Shock Treatment

Amy Tengelics September 20, 2019 6 Comments

I sat in the cold, sterile examination room, anxiously awaiting my new orthopedic doctor–the fourth in two months. I was losing hope of ever finding a doctor who would listen to me. The first three had suggested that my pain was all in my head

I want someone to take me seriously, I brooded. I don’t want to be brushed off as the stereotypical hysterical female. My pain is real, and I’m not crazy. I need someone to believe me.

Finally, there was a soft knock on the door.

“Good afternoon, I’m Dr. Lee.”

In front of me stood a man with an impeccably groomed goatee. He glanced at my elbows, which I have a habit of bending too far backwards while relaxing. Brow furrowed,

Pharmacy Visit

Muriel Murch August 16, 2019 5 Comments

You are a big man, a little heavy, but nothing
that can’t be fixed by daily, brisk walks
or swept away by a
dose of cancer and a blast of treatment.
You have been called from your glass enclosure
to help me.

A productive, bronchial cough
is still with me–too long.
Chinese practitioners call this a lurking pathogen
tossing antibiotics into my weary kidneys to excrete
as a mindful French woman
with her midday steamed leeks.

Unexpected

Christine Loftis August 2, 2019 6 Comments

Christine Loftis ~

“You’re twenty-seven-and-a-half weeks pregnant.”

As I lay on the exam table, time froze.

How can this be? I wondered dazedly. I’m a second-year medical student. I’ve just completed a course in female reproduction and endocrinology. How could I have missed the signs?

I attribute my obliviousness to the surgery I’d gone through only months before: the removal of a twenty-seven-pound, mucus-filled ovarian cyst. My lack of menstrual periods was nothing new; they’d been irregular for years. My recent abdominal bloating must, I’d thought, be the cyst recurring. I hadn’t worried about it because, frankly, I’d always put my health and personal life second to my future career as a physician.

Exit Interview

Tamra Travers June 28, 2019 5 Comments

Tamra Travers ~

“I’m graduating and leaving our clinic in June.”

Over and over again, in the months leading up to this transition, I break this news to my primary-care patients. I have developed many meaningful relationships with patients over my past three years of training as a family-medicine resident in a large, urban health center in Manhattan. But now it is time to leave and move on.

The fluorescent lights in an overly air-conditioned white clinic room illuminate face after face, all with the same look, staring back at me. Her face drops. His shoulders brace. His eyes shift. Her chronic low back pain tightens its grip. Her once improving mood slips back down. The eight-month-old bouncing and smiling on

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

Tag: doctor-patient communication

Microcalcifications

A Doctor’s Visit

Something Stronger

Final Appeal

Saying the D-Word

Back Pain

Greetings and Salutations

Last Day

Shock Treatment

Pharmacy Visit

Unexpected

Exit Interview

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fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

Tag: doctor-patient communication

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