Flashback July 2006

Mid-July, 2006

Another day of running around like headless chickens, being the newbie students we were in our first big posting in the hospitals. And so we scoured the list of new admissions and decided for each of us to talk to one of those patients on the list, learning about how diseases manifest in patients.

I went downstairs to meet the patient. She was this lady in her 50s, English-speaking. Whew. I converse alot better when the patient speaks English, because my Chinese is poor and my knowledge of dialects is pathetic at best.

It was easy to find out from her that she had some nonspecific pain that was maybe suggestive of a gallbladder infection.

Then, the two of us, patient and student, 'connected'.

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I mean, it's like most of the time we just go around interviewing patients on their symptoms, their medical history, the medications they take and stuff. But sometimes, there's this very human aspect that shines. It becomes a conversation.

Sometimes, I talk to the patient with trying to understand let's say appendicitis in mind. But what happens is, the conversation veers into something totally different, when the structure of patient interviewing gets thrown out of the window and both parties gladly be themselves and share their own honest ideas.

Examples being:
Singapore Idol 2 and whether Hady deserves to win.
How evil pharmaceutical companies profit off the poor.
How to make money.
Motorbiking, accidents and fate.

I dunno why but I'm smiling as I write this. Those patients that 'connected', I remember them vividly. Sometimes they remember me too, I can tell. It's so sweet, so human. And somehow, it seems like it happens to me more often than my groupmates. I've asked. I wonder.

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Back to the patient who I had 'connected' with. She confided in me that she had been doctor-hopping to feed her dependency on benzodiazepine sleeping pills, midazolam/Dormicum to be specific. Well then, it's normally not a student's responsibility to give advice - and sometimes it's dangerous because we'd be giving unqualified advice - but then I expressed my concern that she was doing that to herself.

She continued to say that she had found life pretty meaningless for the past 50 plus years and was doubtful if living had been worth it.

Right then the alarm bells started to clang, because I didn't know what to say. What was I going to say? That I found life meaningless so far too? That I myself was terrified of living for 50 years only to find out that I can't find any meaning after all those decades?

I only managed to mutter something about family and all, because that's what we pick up early in clincal attachments - talk about the patient's family and usually they'll have sweet memories to reminisce about. And she says her children have grown up, so it's a bit lonely and boring at home. The typical empty-nest scenario I assume?

Wormed my way through by promising to forward her concerns about her own benzodiazepine dependency to the doctors there. It felt uncomfortable. It chilled me how it was possible that I'd end up like her, 50 plus years old and still finding life meaningless.

Approached the MO in the patient's team - the MO being one of the more junior doctors - those who would listen to what students have to say. Was told that it was out of General Surgery's scope to do anything in the current admission, but that she could mention it in her outpatient visits in future for a referral.

I didn't dare to go back to the patient to tell her that. I didn't dare to look at her, because she reminded me of myself, and possibly what I would become in future.

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Yeah I just had to get this off my chest. It's not a thing that I can really talk about in real-life. Knowing my classmates they'd just either say I'm 1. over-reacting, 2. crazy or they'd just shrug and pretend they didn't listen. Alot of my classmates just shrug and change the topic when they listen about tough issues like this. People seldom want to get their hands dirty.

Back in July I didn't have any sleeping problems - or even see myself having any. Now I have and I can see that ending up dependent on benzodiazepines may actually happen in the end. Now I'm even more freaked out. Those antihistamine tablets the doc prescribed me? They have almost run out, and they don't really work anymore.