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

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The Art of Listening

Reflecting on the start of my medical studies and career, I realize that it took me more than ten years to refine my ability to practice the art of listening. Partly that may have been because English is not my mother tongue; but it was also because listening is an arduous task. As Kate Murphy writes in her book You’re Not Listening: What You’re Missing & Why It Matters: “Understanding is the goal of listening, and it takes effort.”

My first hard lesson in this area occurred when I was a medical student, doing research at a needle-exchange program. A patient named Haris had been screened for HIV, and his test result was positive. He was the first patient to whom I had to give such bad news.

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Another Way to Listen

Editor’s Note: This piece was a finalist in the Pulse writing contest, “On Being Different.”

“David, from this moment forward, you’ll need to listen with your heart.”

It’s been forty years since I heard these words, but they ring as clearly in my mind as if it were yesterday.

My night nurse, Jill, whispered them into my left ear—the only one still able to hear after my fourteen-hour brain surgery to remove a tangerine-sized growth from the acoustic nerve, which affects hearing and balance.

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Heart Sounds

At his mother’s request, or rather pestering, a forty-year-old male presented to an urgent-care center after several weeks of progressively worsening flu-like symptoms. His mother asked that the providers please check her son’s heart. They replied that there was no need and sent the man home.

His symptoms progressed, and the pair went to the ER, hoping for better results. Again, the mother asked the doctors to check her son’s heart.

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