Indexing Title:
HTURINGAN’s Medical Anecdotal Report [05-04]

MAR Title: In the eyes of someone else

Date of Medical Observation: December 2003

 Narration:

 When I was inquiring whether I was in the right window to get an application to medical school, the clerk in De La Salle mistook me for a high school graduate asking for a college application, to say the least I was peeved to always be mistaken to be younger than I actually was.  “I am not a child anymore I’m already an adult why couldn’t people see that, I have a bachelor’s degree to prove it don’t I?”  My dad would only laugh and say something about how skinny and small I was that if I look at my old pictures, I looked the same.  This irritated me more when I entered medical clerkship and patients would mistook me for a student nurse, this was the time I learnt to wear lipstick and grew my hair longer to look more older.  It didn’t do much to change their impression, but I felt more mature nevertheless.  As a surgical resident, this still went on, especially for old patients who thought I’m much too young to be credible after all they have grandchildren younger than I was.  At first I was serious and uptight when they would kindly ask me how old I am, then somewhere along the way I learnt to accept that although I may be young I am competent to ask them to entrust their lives in my hands and before the time I am done with them they have so much respect that I will hear some patients old enough to be my grandfather saying “opo” and bowing their heads when I speak while giving discharge instructions.  This too I find ridiculous as if a balance was tilted to an acute degree. I have learnt to jest about it with my patients, doctors have to be young at one time in their lives don’t they?

 Dealing with blood relation was an entirely different matter, these were aunts and uncles who had seen me in diapers.  I thought I have transcended this barrier as well when I operated on an uncle with urinary bladder stone as big as my fist.  He was afraid of hospitals never ever having to be in one before, he had been suffering from oliguria and hematuria for 6 months and he thought he was dying. He never stopped raving about how his misery ended after I operated on him in 30 minutes top.  To my glee I am now seen as a true doctor and not a mere medical dictionary for cousins and aunts having colds or needing medical certificates.  Or so I thought until I attended a family reunion during Christmas, having been absent for quite sometime from this annual event using medicine and residency as a valid excuse.  My grandmother approached me and told me to take a look at my eldest uncle’s goiter.  I said I will do so, he was my most favorite uncle so I purposely sought him out among the crowd.   I was shocked to see him gaunt and his neck was full of bilateral nodes some bigger than my palm.  He wouldn’t let me examine him and as I spoke to him my mind was raising… Oh God this is malignant I will need to have one of my head and neck consultants see him.  I told him I needed to do a biopsy using a small needle and it wouldn’t hurt much…. and to please come and see me.  He said he will visit me in the hospital but I saw his eyes and knew he wouldn’t.  I felt like a child again, frustrated, afraid for him, knowing I mustn’t let him see that or I will scare him more, I kissed him, he smiled and in his eyes was a 5-year-old me.  I told my youngest uncle to bring him to me in the hospital and have the family convince him to see me or some other doctor he would be more comfortable with the soonest they could.

 Insights (physical, PSYCOSOCIAL, ETHICAL) ,Discovery, Stimulus, REINFORCEMENT:

 The philosophy is the older you get the more knowledge and experience you gain ergo in medicine you can’t blame anyone in deducing that the older a doctor gets the better he becomes, and entrusting your life to someone so young meant a gamble.  And yet to gain credibility you need not exactly be old or try to look older, with diligence, patience, and hard work competence and experience would follow.

 In dealing with relatives what I’ve learnt is to deal with them as they come, to accept that some would always see you as a kid and that there is no reason to feel offended.  It would be better for them to seek medical consult elsewhere.   For those that are brave enough to ask for your services, I personally feel that if I could, I would and if there is a small nagging feeling that I couldn’t, I would not hesitate to refer or ask assistance from my mentors.  I will not carry a burden I have no means to carry alone.

 I knew I was not the person to help him at all even with my training, he was scared of the truth and had already convinced himself that to deny it meant he was well, and to ignore it meant the truth didn’t exist.  When he sees me, I ceased to be what I’ve become and revert back to what I’ve always been in his heart, his beloved little girl, his know-it-all niece who couldn’t wait to grow up to become a doctor.