Dr. Jerry

I'm afraid that I'm falling in love, and I can't fight this feeling anymore. This letter is a small token of the significance of this new relationship. I blotted out the name of the sender per our discussion in "advisory dean lunch" about posting patient information on the Internet. Three cheers for HIPAA.

I saw, EB (this is how the medical/science world refers to a patient in public), last week in my preceptor's office. The first thing that caught my attention on her chart was the fact that she was 93. Yes, 93! The laundry list that followed--pneumonia; breast cancer; lower back surgery; vertigo; diabetes--actually seemed short for someone who has lived through two world wars, two influenza pandemics, two atomic bombs, two towers crashing, two presidents Bush, two panda bears born at the DC zoo. It is like she's lived twice, already.

Anyway, I looked up why she was in today, reviewed some lab values in her chart and entered the exam room. I was expecting someone much...older looking, er, someone with less pep. I expected a walker or cane, or a crumpled husband to be at the patient's side. Instead, there was this feisty old woman sitting upright in the chair giving me the sternest yet friendliest of looks. I shook her hand and took a seat as I introduced myself. I then put her bible sized chart on the counter to my side so I could focus on her and not the 93 yrs of health records straining my arm.

I can't remember the details of the visit as to the specific order of things we covered, but somehow it wasn't long into the visit and we were talking about her restaurant that she owned, that was so, so long ago to her. Even longer back was the divorce of a loveless marriage. Her mother died when she was only 16 (also felt SO long ago for her), leaving a handful of siblings for EB to raise. EB didn't think she would ever marry, at least she would completely take it off the table after the age of 25. Well, luck would have it that at 24 she started dating a young man who eventually proposed to her. She remembers that day at the altar, remembering that she did not love this man, and somehow, the Father understood this, but counseled that this was the right thing to do.

Hello! Can you believe that? This visit started to feel less like I was interviewing a patient and more like I was reading a James Joyce story (The Dead, specifically)! My brain continued with the interview but my mind caught up trying to process the significance of that statement in the patient's life. To live seventy years knowing that you were once married, and divorced of a man you never loved. She went on to tell me more about that situation and others that I would like to write about; but I feel mentioning those things would somehow invade her privacy, even with applying the cloak of anonymity, er, I just want to keep that between us. After the divorce, and back on her own, she dedicated most of her life to raising or caring for extended family, nieces and nephews. A life of total service.

She can't fly on airplanes because of her vertigo. She tires easily, and her hearing is going. She was very supportive of my desire to live to 100, but she had no interest in living another seven years. Despite her indifference over being a centenarian, she seemed so vibrant to me. I don't know, I think she can make it.

There wasn't anything interesting, medically, about this visit. Later that day, and yesterday, I saw some very interesting cases. Cases where I actually knew what I was doing, knew what I was finding on exam. That was really cool. But EB's visit was different. It was one person putting enormous trust into an encounter, the other, putting a lot of honest effort, and hope, and a little bit of expertise; It was two strangers meeting and leaving as friends.

EB stopped in the office the following week to give me this letter. In it was a medallion of the Virgin Mary. It is called the, Miraculous Medal. I am going to keep it in my white coat for as long as I practice, or as long as I wear a white coat, as a reminder of the miracles.

So I'm falling in love with patient care, with internal medicine. I can't help it. And actually, that scares me. I honestly was hoping I'd fall in love with something that pays my loans off. But that is another post...