The White Coat

Tuesday was our white coat ceremony where we were "christened" as medical students. It was not a fancy affair. We split off into our small advising groups called societies, and we did a short introduction as we were fitted one-by-one with a brand new short white coat. Oddly, we began with the last names starting with "L," and I was one of the last to get my coat. It was a couple sizes to big, but perhaps that symbolizes how much I need to grow to become a physician? (Kidding, I exchanged for one that fit better the next day.)

The Bring-it group- we look good, don't we?

It was as if, presto- I was a newly-minted physician-in-training. Directly after, we reassembled as a class (200 medical and dental students together) and piled into a hospital auditorium to listen to two physicians present our "first" patients. One patient a very young girl with her parents who had a huge surgery to repair a birth defect, and the other was an elderly lady who had suffered many chronic diseases and furthermore was the caretaker for her ailing husband. They and the physicians discussed about the hardships of surviving and living with these diseases and the importance of the patient-physician relationship. Both had had some nasty situations involving doctors, and it drove home the point that having the technical skills in medicine simply aren't enough. The human connection is just as essential.

But when can there be too much of the touchy-feely stuff? Is it OK to cry with a patient when delivering bad news? The elderly lady and her physician made an important delineation: showing feelings is acceptable as long it never becomes the patient who is taking care of the physician.

Another sad truth is that often physicians never really understand the patient-physician relationship until they experience the other side of the coin either being patients themselves or close loved ones.

Obviously, there is an abundance of knowledge skills that we as new medical students need to learn to become good physicians, and here's to start of that terrifying/awesome journey.

To continue the memoir theme, another novel that is exceptionally pertinent is White Coat by Ellen Rothman. The subtitle happens to be "Becoming a Harvard Doctor," and it was one of three books that made me reconsider the field of medicine during my freshmen year at Ohio State. Funny how things work out like that.