What do you think student doctors need to learn?
Tell them to LISTEN to their patients and NOT to presume they KNOW how the patient feels because they are NOT in the patient's body. Also if they are a resident and they are interpreting scans upon which surgery is based, they NEED to be sure to get their work checked by their teacher.
Incorrect surgery was done on me due to misread of a scan. I lost the function of my colon, rectum, and small bowel. All scarred together in a knot. Could not eat, gain nutrients, or pass waste. Only ONE surgeon out of 11 nationwide recognized that I was scarred together.Permanent ileostomy and lysis of adhesions saved me.
Why do you think it's important for them to learn this?
Peoples' lives are in their hands. They need to be accurate. Also they need to not get into this "procedures for dollars" frame of mind that my original surgeons were in. They did many unneeded unconsented procedures beyond the sigmoid colon resection (which on review turned out not to be needed either.) Many docs I saw after the fact who did not understand that my colon, rectum, and small bowel were adhered together with scar tissue just wrote me up as crazy, and blamed me. They were trying to cover for the two original surgeons. They were more into the White Wall of Silence politics than into saving me (except for the one doctor who did save me the best that could be done.)
Advice
- 1. Go into medicine to save people. Do not harm.
- 2. Don't get caught up in all this political covering up for docs who are not honest, are unscrupulous and are the ones who drive up malpractice insurance by continually doing things for which they are sued and should be.
- 3. Put the patient first.
- 4. You are not in the patient's body so you do not know how they feel.
- 5. Listen to your patients.
- 6. Do not put yourself on a pedestal because you are a doctor. You simply majored in a field that your patients did not. Some of them may even be smarter than you.
- 7. Be human 1st; a doctor 2nd.
