"Be sensitve to your patients. Don't be kind!"

The anatomy professor talked about "patient management" for about an hour today. It was good, but it almost didn't have anything to do with the class. Granted, the majority of the class aspire to be health care professions. He gave us a bunch of tips on how to not get personal with the patient; how to the train the patient into being just a patient. A lot of the health care providers I've interacted with do get a little personal though. I've had a few doctors tell me that they'll help me get interships and experience when I was premed too. Maybe it's because they know I'm not the type of person to draw out a simple answer into an hour long conversation. I know the boundaries. The professor told us that our "job will be to help people, but don't be compassionate." That really depends on what the person. I have a lot more respect for the nurses and doctors that take that extra 5 minutes to ask something the medical criteria. It's fun being challenged with a medical case, but wouldn't it be a good plus to know the person behind the patient mask. As long as you don't become too friendly I think it would be okay to ask about life. Don't just ask open ended questions like "How are you?" or "Are you okay?" (wait..I've had a few nurses ask me that before, so I don't know). The professor made patients sound like animals. He even compared them to "horses" at one point. There's a fine line between being confident and being controlling. He had a lot of good pointers that I will apply later on in life, but I don't agree with how he portrayed the patients. A patient is a person, just like the health care professional. He shouldn't have called patients "them."

A big part in being a health care professional is being professional on top of being caring. Patients are human, not some toy that you can play with for 15 minutes during a medical examination! The professor had a student pretend to be patient of his. He had her lie down on the table and at one point pulled her legs to slide her forward a bit. People laughed, including the "patient", but it was inappropriate. Anyways, I still love his class, but I just felt strongly against some of his views.

Ahhh, I have to use my 4th of July studying!! It turns out the lab practical next week won't be multiple choice and we're not going to get a word bank!