Patient / Doctor

One of my close friends from college who is also a medical student recently had surgery. Talking to him about his hospital stay was enlightening. You would think that being in medical school would cushion the experience as a patient. But he said that though he walked the same halls with confidence in his white coat, when the roles were reversed, he found it a scary and foreign experience. From the pre-operative clinic visits to the surgery to an ICU stay to the floor, he was never comfortable, never at ease. Despite understanding more medicine than most, he still found everything emotionally challenging and frightening. The role of the patient comes with undeniable vulnerability, no matter how prepared one is. Perhaps knowing more about the medical system makes the experience even harder. Those of us in the medical field know that the system is hardly perfect, that unforeseen events and errors happen, that some complications may not be avoidable. We're all very grateful that he made it through his eight hour surgery safely and well.

What is it like to be a patient? What is it like not to speak English, not to understand medical vocabulary, not to know what each pill is for, not to know what a surgery or procedure entails? What is it like not to know who your doctor is, or how the system works, or the plan for the day? What is it like to wonder whether you'll make it out of the hospital?

I underestimate how scary the hospital is. It's foreign, mechanical, imposing, gray. The patient experience of illness and health extends far beyond the medicine he takes or the doctor he sees for fifteen minutes each day. The patient experience encompasses emotion and fatigue, physical and spiritual challenge, an eclipsed understanding, a willingness to trust that things will be better. Relinquishing that self-determination, giving one's free will to a surgeon, hospital, institution, that's what makes being a patient hard. Unfortunately, I feel that no matter how much I try to understand this feeling, I won't fully know it until I find myself fully immersed in it as a patient.