Lessons on a New Year's Morning
I always find it unbelievable that whenever there is an auspicious occasion that I get patients that would never make me forget the importance of being on hospital duty for that particular day. If Boy would never make me forget Christmas (read my blog entitled "Lessons of Christmas Night"), Joy (not her real name) would have me remembering New Year’s Day for the rest of my life. Why? It’s because Joy was one of the rare patients I had who delivered a baby feet first (breech presentation as Obstetricians call it). Joy came to the ER in active labor and an Internal Exam done initially by the midwife had me believing that Joy was just like any other obstetric patient I had encountered before. I double-checked and confirmed the midwife’s findings. To make a long story short, what the midwife and I thought was the baby’s head turned out to be the baby’s buttock and I only realized this just a few moments before his mother tried to push him out of her. I knew that I had made an incorrect assumption and that’s where my reflection comes in. During my days in the corporate industry, I have trained thousands of employees not to make assumptions, as it was detrimental to business. I always had a saying that “when you assume, you make an ASS of U and ME!”…get it??
This time it wasn't business that was at stake here but the lives of an unborn baby and his mother!
I immediately acted to correct my assumptions and moved onto breech delivery procedures which is a lot different from the regular head first (cephalic) deliveries. We took great care as one wrong pull could decapitate the baby as what happened to a doctor in another hospital. I did not wish to repeat that poor doctor’s mistake. The whole body was out while the baby’s head was still stuck inside of his mother. After a few maneuvers, we managed to free the head only to find a blue, limp baby in my arms. This was definitely not a good start of the year to have a dead baby in my arms! I then went onto resuscitating and exerting all efforts to revive the seemingly lifeless child while his helpless mother cried as she looked on. At this point as I did CPR, all I could do was pray and leave the decision to God whether this baby was to live or die. Soon enough, my prayers were answered as the baby first let out a weak cry and then cried vigorously soon after. Joy and I practically breathed our signs of relief at the same time. Within minutes, the baby was healthy pink and still crying his lungs out. The louder his cry was, the more relief I felt.
I was required to keep both Joy and her baby in the hospital for 48 hours for observation. Let me tell you that baby's cry that resounded throughout that day was music to my ears.
Two days later, Joy and her healthy baby boy left the hospital and went home. Joy, as her vehicle was slowly pulling away from the hospital, looked back at me and smiled saying “Thank you Doc” which made me feel much better about my role as a healer. However, what did I learn from all of this? The first thing is never to assume anything when it comes to patients. If in the business world assumptions are detrimental, in medicine assumptions can be FATAL! Despite the fact that Joy and her baby left in one piece, I found myself broken as I began to question my knowledge and competencies as a healer. Had it not been for divine intervention, would the outcome of this story be a lot different? If I had known that this was a breech presentation, would my actions have prevented the near death of that child? It’s actually true that after some time of successful practice, doctors develop some sort of “god complex” where they feel that they have the power to heal patients just like that. Many become complacent while others become arrogant, thinking that they are infallible when it comes to treating patients. Little do we realize that one slight miscalculation or wrong assumption could actually cause the untimely death of a patient. I remember in my favorite movie Patch Adams, Dean Walcott said to a group of medical students “It is human to make mistakes and take short cuts…we will train the humanity out of you and make you into something better…we’re going to make doctors out of you!” At first, I shared the same sentiments as Dr. Patch Adams had upon hearing that. Training the humanity of me would make me lose the person I am in return for the great knowledge required to save lives. Even during clerkship and internship, I have always been resistant to the harsh discipline the consultant and resident doctors pounded in me with the fear that I would become “cold-hearted and arrogant” like a lot of them and turn into a stiff which I hated the most. In my practice, I have always been good with patients and made sure that they would remember me even after they left the hospital or clinic where I worked. Now, I began to question whether I should have been different and somehow regretted the laxity I had during my med school days. However, the realization is that I have been endowed with a great responsibility and I believe that I would not be given this if I were ill equipped to handle it. There are thousands of other doctors out there who are smarter and better than me but it’s not about competition. It’s about saving lives and improving the quality of the lives of our patients. It’s about the holistic approach to healing where medical knowledge is not enough. Knowledge without prudence, tact or compassion is nothing! A patient is a person. We should not just treat the disease but also the person as Dr. Patch Adams pointed out. It’s about getting down to the level of our patients and trying our best to empathize with them. Trying to feel what they feel, in turn having a greater appreciation for their plight. At this point, I did feel better about myself and the vocation that I believed was handed to me by God. Joy will be a lesson learned never to make assumptions and to always be on my feet at all times. It will not lessen the trust I have in the staff working with me but it is an eye opener that I must ensure that every detail is covered before making any judgment calls. Before this happened, I never did understand why training to be a doctor was like going through hell and back but after almost losing a life, I understood the enormous responsibility this profession held and only the ones deemed fit for it were the ones who made it through. It was like a large obstacle course where only the fittest survived. If you are a medical student reading this, strengthen yourself and prepare for the most trying times of your life. If you are fit, you will survive! The mere fact that doctors are a select few, I understand why others become arrogant and boastful of their achievements. Some people spend years specializing and sub-specializing adding all sorts of titles to their names but it all boils down to these things; saving lives and preventing death. We are at war with Death! Unfortunately, despite our best abilities, Death wins. Every life we lose is a battle lost but the war never ends! Ultimately, we too will lose ourselves to Death but there will always be others to take our place and will continue to wage the never-ending war against him. We win some and lose some. This is a hard truth that all healers must accept. At a time where I was becoming too confident of my abilities, God gave me Patient Joy to show me that my skills are worthless if I act too rashly or impulsively and as a healer I am nothing without HIM. I sure hope other healers reading this realize this too that without HIM none of us is really worth anything! God bless us all in our battles ahead. Have a wonderful new year ahead!
Till next time :)
Note: This article was originally published about 5 years ago in a previous blog site of mine and has been edited and reposted for this current blog site.
