Experience of ‘the other side’ has led to awkward conversations with colleagues,but has also taught me so much and means my patients accumulate a better deal from meIt was the halt of a long working week. A patient, sobbing, and behind a drawn curtain around his bed shouted at me to go absent. I said I was the doctor. A pause,then the curtain was pulled back. I see a man curled up in his hospital gown on the floor, hiding his face and tears. The news that we were going to investigate his cancer was understandably a massive shock. After helping him back into bed, and making a cup of tea and spending an hour with him,I left this man to finish the outstanding jobs for my other patients. What this man didn’t know was that I have cancer, too. When I say I know it’s hard when you don’t know what’s going to happen, and I really mean it. The following week I had my fourth operation in a year for malignant melanoma. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com