In a lecture at the start of our oncology block on Monday, we were told that it will take time to learn to talk to cancer patients. Cancer patients will be scary to us young uninitiated things, we will be awkward and find it hard.
Ok, I thought, fair enough. I can imagine some people will find it hard to know where to start. But I was a little puzzled at this idea that cancer patients were somehow beyond the pale for us. We have all talked to patients who are terminally ill by now, after 2 years of clinical medicine. I spent 2 hours talking to a patient yesterday, ah, the time luxury we have as students! I thought it was sad that a young (52yo) woman had metastatic breast cancer, in her bones, her liver, lungs, uterus and now her brain too. I was amazed at her fortitude and determination to be as well as she could be. I was impressed by anyone talking even more and even faster than me. But I wasn't scared of approaching her and asking if she would talk to me. I wasn't scared to hear her say the word 'cancer'. I wasn't scared at all. In fact, I was glad I could talk to her and I wish we were encouraged to spend time with people in this situation, stuck in hospital for 5 days of radiotherapy. We're about the only people in the hospital all day with big chunks of spare time. I think I will mention it to the lecturer, as the only thing I found scary was the attempt to scare us in the introductory talk...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment