lohidoc wrote:
But those kind and compassionate silver haired words do not reveal that he regards your premature death as a natural and perfectly acceptable outcome of his treatment. And five minutes later he will have forgotten all about you. And when the notice of your death appears on his desk he will give it no more than ten seconds thought before moving on to the next patient…..
I haven't finished reading all of the posts on this thread yet, but I wanted to comment on the above statement.
It isn't true. Sure, maybe there are some doctors who are that cold or jaded that the death of a patient does not affect them. But because of my unusual relationship with my oncologist in Chicago, I got to see behind the veil. He was devastated whenever he lost a patient. Hell, he was devastated when a patient's disease progressed! I am sorry that you had a bad experience with your oncologist, but I don't think one should paint them all with the same brush.
And someone mentioned (sorry, I do not remember who) that medical students are not educated in communication. Well, that may have been the case a couple of decades ago, and perhaps even in several med schools still, but before I had to leave because of my cancer, that is actually what I did for a living. I worked for the largest medical school in the country (University of Illinois), and that was pretty much the main thrust of my whole department, teaching communication (we did also teach clinical skills, but even then, those lessons included communication). This is certainly becoming the norm across the country, and for the past several years, med schools can't get accredited without some kind of "Standardized Patient" program, and in order for students to get their license, they have to pass a standardized patient examination as well as their other boards and tests. As it is kinda an unknown thing for those outside of medical education, the definition of Standardized Patient is a person who is trained in portraying a certain illness and trained in feedback and communication skills, who then engages in a clinical scenario with a med student playing the clinician and the SP then either teaches or assesses, whichever is the point of that particular program.
Unfortunately, the med students don't always take that as seriously as their clinical lessons.
However, in the 14 years I worked at UIC, I saw that changing.