To Know Someone

When I chose anesthesiology, I was afraid that I wouldn't really get to know patients. And indeed, I don't know them in the sense that their primary care doctor or pediatrician might. I might not know their nickname or their job or what their kids do or why controlling diabetes is so hard for them. Patients may not confide how many drinks they really have each night or that they feel depressed all the time. I don't spend as much time examining each patient. I don't follow up after each surgery to learn how it has impacted their life. In these ways, family doctors, psychiatrists, surgeons, obstetricians, and specialists know patients better than I do.

But since starting residency, I've realized that I know a lot about patients in other ways. In taking control of their breathing, in supporting their heart during surgery, in titrating pain medications, in running my hands up and down their arms looking for a vein, in looking at their heart with an echocardiogram, in following the surgeons' progress, in reassuring a patient pre-operatively, in making sure they will do fine post-operatively, I have learned a lot about the patient and their body. I know how they react under stress. I can predict how their recovery will look. I know what will save them in an emergency. It's a different kind of knowing, but just as important, and just as fulfilling.