Day Three: Internal Medicine

Hello Readers,

To cut straight to the point, it was a very exhausting day, both emotionally and physically, and as a result of the day I was rendered even more astounded by Dr. M, who conquered the day in 3-inch heels. The result of this day in the clinic has allowed me to look more in depth into the factors I believe that escape the reach of personality tests. In this case patient attitude, age, and work environment.

Today was a ceaseless, but educational day in the clinic. Just when you thought that the tide would recede, it came again stronger. One of the only bright sides to this day was that I was able to observe a physician balance the emotional and clinical aspects of an appointment under pressure. There were so many regular patient appointments, walk in’s, and prescription orders to fill. Almost every appointment was characterized by repeated assurances that Dr. M is the very best, and the very same symptoms from the earlier appointments. The usual bread and butter of these appointments usually were heart conditions, such as a heart murmur, psychological disorders, such as dementia, respiratory problems, such as asthma, and obesity.  It was an almost predictable morning until the later patients came.

It was later in the afternoon that these patients came into examination room, and to be perfectly honest, they rendered me speechless. The respect, or lack of in this case, that they treated this accomplished physician who was only trying to help was horrendous. The patients who did not want to listen to the advisory of a physician usually disregard her judgment blatantly, by telling her that she “just did not understand”, or by claiming to misunderstand her, as I saw with the use of their hearing aids. For me, it would be a hard pill to swallow if someone were to say that I just did not understand even though I was putting forth every effort to try to. The resonating question left from these later appointments was if psychological tests incorporated the way an environment reacts to a person.

The patient trend that I have noticed is that patients typically are different in two ways: the old and the young. The older patients are typical more stubborn, content, confused, exhausted, and usually question if a treatment advised is worth the effort at their age. However in the event that it is a simple diagnosis, older patients are typically more motivated and dedicated to treatments. The younger patients however are usually characterized by ‘why me’ syndrome, are more depressed, and when treatment options are offered, there is little motivation to heed the advice given.

In the case of a work place environment, I do believe that is has a place within a personality. As I noticed throughout the day, as the more and more patients began to walk in, the office began to into a craze in order to try to accommodate the influx of patients, which resulted in the office staff over taxing themselves and leading to more stress. In an environment where stress can be lessened or intensified at a moments notice, would it be wise to place a person into such an environment because a personality test, which has not factored in this chaos, suggested it? Most likely not.

So for now I summarize my thoughts to this: Could you do this everyday for the rest of your life?

Thanks for reading,

Viniti Parikh