just another patient?

I’ve just finished a book one of my lovely doctor friends gave me for Christmas. I’ve actually been meaning to read this book for ages – it was recommended by one of my lecturers 3 years ago during an in-depth discussion about caring for patients with communication difficulties and the perspective of the patient. It’s called The Diving Bell and the Butterfly written by a guy (the former editor-in-chief of Elle) who had a massive stroke and could only communicate by blinking one eye – that’s how he dictated the book. It’s a reflection on life (past and present), his relationships, emotions and thoughts in this ‘locked in’ world. Some of the most interesting parts for me were his impressions of the hospital staff...

“...gentle, rough, caring, indifferent, hardworking, lazy, the ones you can make contact with and the ones to whom you are just another patient. At first some of the staff had terrified me. I saw them as my jailers, as accomplices in some awful plot.
Later I hated some of them, those who wrenched my arm while putting me in my wheelchair, left me all night long with the TV on, let me lie in a painful position despite my protests. For a few minutes or a few hours I would cheerfully have killed them. And later still, as time cooled my fiercest rages, I got to know them better. They carried out as best they could their delicate mission: to ease our burden a little when our crosses bruised our shoulders too painfully...”

It reminded me of a quote I read in one of my ‘required reading’ articles a few months ago... “One of the essential qualities of the clinician is interest in humanity, for the secret of the care of the patient is in caring for the patient” Francis Peabody 1927

I'm back to the hospital world on monday :)