Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Ten days of class...

So yesterday I had my physical exam assessment that I was dreading. I spent the whole day freaking out about it, then when I got there it was just another exam. Not a huge deal. Tomorrow I have my "digital review" of the patient interviews. Everyone who has had theirs so far has said they were fine. We had to interview two standardized patients. For those who don't know standardized patients are actors who are paid to come in and act like a patient with a particular story. The funniest part of all this for me is our empathy training that we had using these standardized patients. Think about it. How hard is it to feel empathy for fake emotion. "Yes, I feel much fake empathy for your fake sadness, we'll do all we can to help you out...." So contrived. I understand the point but c'mon. You can empathize with patients or you can't. A one day session on how to look epathetic (empathic?) is not going to help those who are incapable of human interaction. They will be radiologists and pathologists, or really bad docs...

4 comments:

The Maiden Metallurgist said...

I had an anesthesiologist once who was really good at human interaction, if you know what I mean. I'm just kidding, that was only a dream. He was hot though, I inappropriately hit on him in front of my mom right as the general was kicking in. Classy.

L.G. said...

Apparently there's lots of "accidents" with patients hitting on anesthesiologists. Blame propofol, it's a listed side effect....

The Maiden Metallurgist said...

OMG are you making that up? Either way it's hilarious.

L.G. said...

Totally not making it up. There are whole online discussion boards about the funny side effects of propofol, and that's pretty much what they always use to put people out. I can't wait to have some awesome stories of my own!