Yesterday, we went to a local nursing home and saw our first patient as 3rd year medical students. As I previously noted, we drove to the nursing home on Monday to ensure we knew where we were going. This drive took about 20 minutes, so we decided to leave an hour early: an hour wasn't long enough. Traffic was extra crazy (first day back after the three day weekend for Memorial Day) and I was getting a bit nervous about being late, as they will make you leave and you may or may not get to reschedule the event (which can greatly affect your grade). Luckily, Farley and I put the school's phone number in our phones and he called as I drove. I dropped him off at the door at 9:00am on the button and then looked for parking. Farley just made it in the the nick of time, but the school had not yet reached the professors about our phone call when Farley walked in. Ten minutes later when I arrived, I was greeted with a happy professor (once I said my name) who told me not to sweat it since we called in advance. The car load of people who arrived after me, however, we not welcomed and were sent home.
Farley and I got to interview one patient together and he was an extremely ill man who had a stroke. He had lost mobility and feeling, and had delayed speech. In a way it was exhausting, but I was glad that we were able to spend a few hours with him. I got the impression that he didn't have many visitors and I don't think he can leave his room very often. When I first walked by his room and heard the loud Motown music, I thought, "Now, that is the room Farley and I belong in." The professors tried to give us two other patients that didn't work out before we went to our patient's room and this may sound silly, but I think we were meant to go to that room and spend some time with him. Besides, how often do you get to talk about how wonderful Barry White's music is with a patient?? I don't think many of our peers appreciate Barry White as much as we do--we were the right medical students for this patient. Parts of our interview and physical were fun and other parts were very sad given his illnesses. It is easy to forget about the humanity of medicine when you spend all day reading books and seeing this relatively young man be so genuinely happy with all of his struggles was a great reminder of the humanity in medicine. Given his illnesses, it will be a more difficult history and physical (H&P) to write up, but at least we had fun with our patient and the H&P will be interesting!
Classes today were okay (our entire class meets on Wednesdays), but I have a bit of a cold so I was trying to blow my nose and write notes at the same time, while continually using hand sanitizer as to not make my peers ill. I was glad that we took the metrorail (train) rather than driving (it much quicker and easier to take public transit). It was so nice to get home tonight.
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