The Paradox

I'd always hoped to build and sustain a ten, twenty-year relationship with my patients if I were ever accepted into medical school and graduate as a doctor. I viciously attacked the direction of modern medicine, the commercialisation and industrialisation of the one field that should never undergo such changes. But in reality, my hopes are already of the past.

Large scale practices where teams of general practitioners work designated shifts are already a norm. How impractical to have to travel lengthy times to from one clinic to another. Please go for an x-ray downstairs. Blood tests next door. Pharmacy in the next building. Nurses, receptionists, patients alike moving in a bustling and at times hectic environment of multiple waiting rooms and spaces.

The article I recently read on the Times, The Paradox of the Doctor Patient Relationship, forced me to rethink my previous notions, and over the course of the weekend, I constantly revisited the thoughts put forth by Laura Fitzpatrick.

Spent the weekend in Anglesea at a Family Camp organised by Diabetes Australia Victoria for children aged 4 - 8 and one of the parent. The weekend involved activities for the children and educational sessions for parents, an opportunity for parent and child alike to meet others in similar situations.

Amongst other thoughts, the foremost: I might never see these people again.

Never see the kid smile so happily into his Weetbix, never play peekaboo after dinner, never hear their belly laughs and giggles, never speak to the mother who just told me of the day her child was diagnosed with Type I diabetes at twenty three months and how they're coping now, never have to force down my tears at their words, never hear the words 'and my world was turned upside down' reiterated by different parents over and over again.

But I was there.

In those moments, I was there.

I would be part of the memory of the parent whose eight-year-old child just bravely performed their first insulin injection. I would be part of the memory of the father of the most adorable child on camp when he thinks back to how they found their cabin the first day on camp. Maybe occasionally, a mother would think back to the moment she saw her daughter lean into my ear, telling me her favourite farm animal was a duckling, then a lamb and finally a rabbit, and how she asked for a photo to note that moment.

Rather than the traditional doctor-patient relationship, the medical world I'm most likely to emerge into will be one of haste - seconds, minutes to deliver the best care, rather than years.

I may never see these people again, but in those moments, I will be there.

Maybe ten years down the track, they'll look at photos from this time and remember.

What happiness, attention and care I could give to them. 

I have and will do my best to give my all.