| Thursday, November 08, 2007 |
| Dealing with lives |
4 weeks into my Surgery posting, and 90% of the patients who have cancer that I've seen are coming to hospital because of recurrence of their cancer or metastases.
A 42 year old woman had a breast tumour the size of a fist on her chest. We found out that she had a mastectomy and axillary clearance awhile ago and did not do any radiotherapy or chemotherapy because of financial problems. When asked why she did not seek medical help when the new tumour was growing, she said she had to look after her 43 year old husband who had liver cancer. He's now in a vegetative state, and she's having severe back pain (possibly cancer spread to the spine). Her eldest child is 15 and youngest is 5 years old. There's no one else to look after her children if anything happens to her.
And all the doctor said was, "Makcik, you pergi JB Hospital jumpa doktor pakar cancer, ok?"
That's it. No explanation, no counselling, nothing.
A woman in her 50s was told that she had rectal cancer and that she needed surgery. She insisted that she did not want surgery for fear of pain. I realised that she is so afraid of surgery anywhere near her rectum because of painful experiences when she did her colonoscope. And now she's willing to do anything but go for surgery.
All the doctor did was tell her that the worse thing that could happen to her was being unable to pass motion.
That's it. No convincing her that if she delays surgery, the cancer could spread to other parts of her body and cause more pain and suffering. No explanation on how the surgery could possibly save or prolong her life. Nothing.
A woman in our ward was admitted for breast cancer which later caused 'automastectomy', basically the breast tissue died off by itself. She was told she had breast cancer awhile back but she did not come back for treatment. I'm thinking the doctor gave poor counselling or she was too afraid to do a mastectomy.
A 32 year old woman with bilateral breast cancer passed away in our ward. To lose your life at such a young age.
If I was their doctor, and I took 10 extra minutes to talk to them, convince them to let me help them, to find a way to make them see that they have a chance to prolong their lives, would it have made a difference?
A specialist once said, "Some of you are religious people. You are willing to spend 2 hours in the church, mosque or temple, but do you spend 5 minutes holding the hand of the patient in your ward? 5 minutes talking to the patient in your clinic?"
Doctors have the power to kill, not heal. If you do something wrong, you will kill your patient. If you don't do something right, you will kill your patient. |
posted by Sha @ 10:40 PM  |
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| 3 Comments: |
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Isn't it amazing the power of 5 minutes? Does it make you angry that nobody seemed to bother to have a quick word or even just organise to have someone else come talk to them? Perhaps that's what happens to jaded, burnt-out docs. They forget that 5 minutes. Hope we never be like that..
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And apparently, that 5 minutes is only worth spending in front of 'someone'.
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omg... i totally agree with the specialist... and you of cuz... that's also wot i've been feeling... i actually wrote and article to the lecturers about this issue... they seemed supportive but no further action was taken... yeah... what could have been done... we need to change things. anyways... i started blogging today as well... just feel the need to share visit it =) http://thinkingdoingornothing.blogspot.com/
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Isn't it amazing the power of 5 minutes? Does it make you angry that nobody seemed to bother to have a quick word or even just organise to have someone else come talk to them? Perhaps that's what happens to jaded, burnt-out docs. They forget that 5 minutes. Hope we never be like that..