My journey through medical school, thoughts on medicine, ethics, specialties, pre-med perils, and advice for those who want to do the same.
“"Virus" is a Latin word used by doctors to mean, "Your guess is as good as mine”
"The difference between an itch and an allergy is about one hundred bucks."
"A patient going to a doctor for his first visit was asked, ''And whom did you consult before coming to me?'' ''Only the village druggist,'' was the answer. ''And what sort of foolish advice did that numbskull give you?'' asked the doctor, his tone and manner denoting his contempt for the advice of the layman. ''Oh,'' replied his patient, with no malice aforethought, ''he told me to come and see you.''"
"He's the best physician that knows the worthlessness of the most medicines" Benjamin Franklin
A man speaks frantically into the phone, "My wife is pregnant, and her contractions are only two minutes apart!"
"Is this her first child?" the doctor queries.
"No, you idiot!" the man shouts. "This is her husband!"
I felt this way at the beginning of my 3rd year - but now that I'm close to done with it and have seen so much more and learned so much in the process, I realize that they are not guesses at all. There is never an 100% sure way of knowing how to treat a condition, but there are some ways that are fairly close - examples come to mind: chemotherapy for oncologic malignancies based on results of pathology evaluation and patient characteristics. It's all about evidence-based medicine and how you apply it to your patients.
ReplyDeleteI think it's almost impossible to ever really know what's wrong with the body. It's all carefully studied guess based on experience, repetition, and knowledge. It's sort of how we trust weather.com to see what the weather is tomorrow, even though the numerous times it's wrong...I definitely get your point because doctors decisions are more of life/death situations, which is more important than weather...
ReplyDeleteHave you read Complications? So good...
ReplyDeleteDoctors have better odds of guessing correctly than anyone else! We've been through enough medical BS with my daughter to know that getting an accurate diagnosis with a complex case is nearly impossible...but I still want to be a doctor. I want to be the kind of doctor who can FIGURE things out instead of just guess blindly, and the kind of doctor who really listens to patients, because regardless of whether they ultimately figure it out or not, the doctors that listen are infinitely better than those who don't.
ReplyDeleteWell, I have to agree with Kyla, doctors obviously have better odds of guessing correctly than anyone else.. we don't spend most of our lives thinking about medicine, studying like crazy for nothing; =)
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