As a cardiothoracic anesthesiologist, I’m accustomed to meeting patients for the first time less than an hour before large cardiac and thoracic surgeries. During these encounters, I have a finite amount of time to explain my anesthetic plan, establish expectations, justify my goals, answers questions, and garner rapport before proceeding…
Over the course of my training, I’ve taken care of many incarcerated patients in the perioperative and intensive care settings. The overwhelming majority of them are humbled by their illness and incredibly grateful for the care provided by treatment teams. Unfortunately, everyone in the hospital knows they are incarcerated. Whether…
I took four years of Spanish in high school and consider myself to be more-than-conversational in the language, but when it comes to especially emotional topics like discussing abuse or suicidal ideations, I prefer to use a translator to ensure that I word everything appropriately.
Depression is the most common psych condition I’ve come across during my time at the Veterans Affairs hospital. It permeates all age groups and has etiologies ranging from the loss of a family member to uncertainty about the future; in spite of this tremendous variability, two things seem to always…
Today I had the esteemed privilege of interviewing a veteran in the psych clinic. I also had the rare experience of witnessing this prototypic American warrior — an individual trained to show no fear, experience no pain, and survive at all costs — break down and bawl uncontrollably at the…
Today’s last lecture was a patient presentation by a neurologist from Methodist Hospital. The patient had a memory disorder which the class tried to discern based primarily on his medical history. We soon discovered he had Alzheimer’s disease.
Tuesday afternoon, I had my first encounter with a standardized patient (SP) as part of the PPS I HX/PE exam. I was responsible for taking the patient’s complete history and vital signs as well as conducting a cardio, respiratory, and abdominal exam. Though this encounter was purely for practice, I…
