Part of being a clinician

Today, I heard from a good friend of mine who happens to be a good paramedic out of state.  They were telling me about issues with a family member who’s in the hospital and in poor condition.  Part of this involved the communication from the hospitalist who asked if the family member had a do not resuscitate order because the family member in question is “very sick” and without a DNR order, the patient’s ribs would be broken during CPR and “her insides would be messed up.”

I’ve dealt with similar conversations before both as a medical provider and as a family member.  Without going into my rant against hospitalists (who don’t know the patient outside of the hospital, rarely have an idea as to the patient’s baseline, and are often the bottom of barrel clinically and academically), this is completely unacceptable.

However, I will say that this is how people in medicine get sued. Not because their medicine hurt or helped. But because they have zero idea how to communicate with people. There are way too many physicians who have a pure science background and see patients as lab values on paper. They see patients and their families as a distraction. Likewise, there are way too many in EMS who are bitter because they were promised a chance to race the reaper and save lives and taking care of sick people isn’t “what they signed up for.” I am far from religious and definitely not Christian, but the verse from the Gospel of Matthew says it all. “I was sick and you visited me.” Ultimately, that’s what being a clinician is about. Taking care of sick people. Not flashing lights or even geeking out over lab values. And caring (and dare I say ministering) for the sick means caring for their family too.

I see way too many physicians who have a gift for the sciences and not a gift for communication.  I see way too many in EMS who can improvise a solution to make MacGyver proud but who make Chuck Norris look sensitive and compassionate. Medicine is not a pure science, no matter what anyone says.  It’s a profession.  Whether you’re a brand new EMT or a tenured medical school professor with subspecialty certification, you’re a professional using your scientific knowledge to solve human problems.  And human problems require interacting with humans.  Part of that interaction means communicating with other people, not all of whom you may like or who you may think are as smart as you are or even worth your time.

And the human factor in any profession, especially including medicine, is why professions aren’t mere sciences.  Yes, there’s a ton of science in medicine.  It is the foundation for much of what we do.  But we apply this knowledge to help others.  And helping others goes significantly beyond acid-base balances, covalent bonds, thermodynamics, or gas laws. It’s about demonstrating a bit of compassion and empathy.

You don’t necessarily learn those things in a science lab.  You learn them from interacting with others.  You learn these things in a liberal arts classroom where your views about the world are challenged, where you learn to defend your views, where you learn to maybe change your views, and most importantly, where you learn to communicate and get along with others.

Medicine — at any level — is ultimately a people profession.  If you’re not comfortable with people, you’re not likely to succeed.  It’s why EMS clinical evaluations are supposed to include an “affective domain” aspect.  And this is why I think that the constant drumbeat for more “science” classes in EMS also needs to be tempered with more classes in English, psychology, sociology, history, geography, and management.  In other words, being a solid clinician requires understanding people as much as it does the science.

And to add in my legal advice, people rarely know if you’re good at what you do.  They do know whether or not you’re nice to them.  And many of these cases of being “not nice” often involve poor or failed communications with the patient and/or their family.  Learning how to talk to others, whether to get information or to persuade, was a significant part of my education as a legal professional.  It needs to be a significant part of our EMS education as well — and that means more than rapidly brushing through the mnemonics of “SAMPLE” and “OPQRST.”  It means active listening and then incorporating that information with your scientific knowledge to actually care for your patient.

That’s what being a professional is about. That’s what being a clinician is about.  It’s not about the flashing lights.  It’s not about the lab values.  It’s not about an obscure EKG finding.  It is about caring for others.  Period.

Comments

  1. Gene Gandy says

    Once again a home run, Wes.

  2. Mrs. G (herself an experienced nurse) has a pretty good theory about physicians… They spend formative years (4 years of college, 4 years of med school, and 3-8 years postgrad, basically from 18-30+) with their noses to the grindstone, and miss out on learning how to work with people. Again, this is not true of everyone with MD or DO after his/her name, but it’s pretty common. It’s a personality aspect that med schools could do better about screening for, but they don’t.

  3. Everybody always tells kids “you’re so smart, you should become a doctor.” No one ever tells kids “you’re so good with people, you should become a doctor.”