The Patient No One Wanted by Katherine Norris Williams

Author:Katherine Norris Williams
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-64214-217-4
Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc
Published: 2018-09-18T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

You’re Fired

I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug.

I will not be ashamed to say “I know not,” nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient’s recovery.

I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.

—Modern version, Hippocratic Oath

Louis Lasagna

“You’re fired!” I didn’t know that a doctor could fire a patient, but I was soon to learn better. It wasn’t expressed in those exact terms, but it might as well have been. I used to hold doctors in high esteem, but my attitude has since changed. I have found a few that treat medicine as art, not just science, and some that are sympathetic, warm, and understanding. There have even been a very few that admitted that they didn’t know what was wrong. It astounds me that many blame the problems on the patient if they don’t have an answer, or they will pick out a medication the patient is taking and make it be the culprit for everything even if the same symptoms were present before taking the drug, and from my experience, most do not want the patient’s input. Maybe people who have straightforward illnesses such as tumors or illnesses that can be detected with CT scans or lab tests have a different view from mine.

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