Physician Shadowing III

This seems to be turning into a pre-med blog. :)

Anyway, I'll write an entry about my 4th of July and what being an American means to me.

On Wednesday I shadowed Dr. Stewart again. It was awesome, as always. :) I was very grateful to be there since the AC at our house broke down and the office was nice and cool. <3 Anyway, I was there from 8:45 till 5:00 and it was great. I've officially been at an office for the whole work day! It was very interesting and it helped me think of a lot of questions!

One of the most interesting parts of the day were seeing a strep throat. I saw tonsils and Dr. Stewart let me know how they classify them. I guess it's on a scale from one to three, with three being tonsils touching. I asked him how he knew they should take them out, and he say it's if they've had tonsillitis at least 5 times in the past year. He also said that they try not to take them out unless they absolutely have to; it's also harder to recover from that kind of surgery as an adult because the tonsils are bigger and change shape.

The same lady with the strep throat had something called Crohn's disease. Crohn's disease is a type of inflammatory bowel disease that may affect any part of the gastrointestinal tract from the mouth to the anus. Dr. Stewart asked her if she had a few minutes to talk about me it; he said I would benefit from knowing what it was like from a patient's point of view rather than from information. She told me she started feeling horrible with her second pregnancy and that it took a whole year before they diagnosed her with it. She had some trouble with medications and stopped taking them for about a year; it worked for a while but she started feeling really sick again. At that point her insurance company had dropped her because of her disease and it took a year to find a new one. As far as lifestyle goes, she said it's hard; since she's had it the whole time she's had kids, they understand that "mommy can't do something because she has to go to the bathroom." She said that it wasn't a great thing to have, but that she knew others had it worse; she just learned how to live with it. It was truly inspiring and it really touched me, especially because she must've been around 30 with four little ones to take care of. I now understand why Dr. Stewart hates dealing with insurance companies; they can truly be horrible.

I think by far the most interesting thing we saw was a gentleman that had cut his finger by lifting a rock. It was very deep and his finger was bleeding a lot. He ended up needing stitches and I was able to watch! He only needed three, but it still took about half an hour to get it done; the surgery room was being used so we had to wait. Anyway, I watched Dr. Stewart do it and it was very interesting. The gentleman's skin was extremely tough, so Dr. Stewart was having trouble putting the needle through it. I've never seen it done before, so I found it extremely interesting. I won't lie, it made me kinda dizzy at first. Not because his finger was bleeding and it looked pretty gross; what made me dizzy was seeing the skin on the needle! I do not like skin! It's okay because I know I can handle it if needed. What it did for me was reestablish that I do not want to be a dermatologist! Not only did I find it boring when I shadowed the dermatologist last year, I also found out I'm not a fan of the way skin looks past the outer layer, and by that I mean the part you see every day. Guess it's just not my thing!

I asked Dr. Stewart how he dealt with difficult patients. He said something I didn't think a doctor could do! He said it is perfectly okay to "fire" patients! You can't just tell them you can't see them anymore; you have to notify them in writing and let them know you can see them for medical emergency for 30 days. You also have to recommend new doctors for them to see. However, after those 30 days, you don't have to see them anymore. He said it's mostly patients that use you for narcotics, but that they do get some they let go because they may become aggressive.

I also asked him what he thought were good qualities to have as a doctor. He said being patient is very important, as well as being a good listener, have good problem solving skills, good communication, being able to gather data, have a love for learning, and be okay with routine. The last one was important because there's routine no matter what specialty you go into. He said if you don't like taking out gallbladders, you probably shouldn't do it for a living. That really got me thinking because I did like the variety of family medicine, even though you do see more things than others, like sore throat vs a rare disease. Because of this he also said he would always chose to practice primary care, but if he was to do something outside of it, he would do cardiology.

I also asked him what's the most rewarding part of the job? He said it was by far the relationship with patients. You get to know them in a level that most people don't; you can ask them anything during their visits. The part he hates the most in by far the paperwork; he said it can drive you insane, but that it's very important. You can't send off a patient to a specialist without writing things down; you have to let them know what you talked about and what, if any, medications you prescribed.

It was truly a great experience. My feet hurt at the end of the day but it was totally worth it! I wish I had more friends going into medicine that I could hang out with so we can geek out about all of this! I'm just excited about going back next week and learning even more! I think I'm going to keep my options open as far as specialties go. I find more and more things interesting. <3

I won't worry about that for a long time though.

My main worry is getting into medical school. :)

Love,
Andrea, Future M.D. or D.O.