The Doctor
I happened to stumble into a favorite movie of mine (which I haven't seen in a while) this afternoon..."The Doctor" starring William Hurt (1991.)
The last time I watched it was well before nursing school was in my mind. Medicine, for that matter. It touches on the main point of finding compassion in medicine-well worth the two hours. I had thought early on that nurses would be less immune to this "stoic" attitude, but quite the contrary...everyone is busy. In my case, in the ER, busy to get them to the room, busy to triage, busy to just start that line and get labs going. I have seen many times nurses neglecting to even introduce themselves. We even forget that the gown is an uncomfortable experience for people more private. I also think of the transfer from the EMS stretcher to the bed, especially for older or larger patients....how this might feel.
Toward the end of the movie, Hurt has his residents strip down, don the gowns, and go the next 72 hours in their own room, being treated as patients to hopefully allow them to walk in the shoes and get back in touch with this aspect of the healing experience.
I have two books I have also put on the back burner (Pharm & Psych Books lead the way at the moment) that touch on this theme as well: "Medicine & Compassion, a Tibetan Lama's Guidance for Caregivers" by Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche with David R. Shlim, MD, and"Empathy and the Practice of Medicine", edited by Howard Spiro. I highly recommend them...
until next time....
The last time I watched it was well before nursing school was in my mind. Medicine, for that matter. It touches on the main point of finding compassion in medicine-well worth the two hours. I had thought early on that nurses would be less immune to this "stoic" attitude, but quite the contrary...everyone is busy. In my case, in the ER, busy to get them to the room, busy to triage, busy to just start that line and get labs going. I have seen many times nurses neglecting to even introduce themselves. We even forget that the gown is an uncomfortable experience for people more private. I also think of the transfer from the EMS stretcher to the bed, especially for older or larger patients....how this might feel.
Toward the end of the movie, Hurt has his residents strip down, don the gowns, and go the next 72 hours in their own room, being treated as patients to hopefully allow them to walk in the shoes and get back in touch with this aspect of the healing experience.
I have two books I have also put on the back burner (Pharm & Psych Books lead the way at the moment) that touch on this theme as well: "Medicine & Compassion, a Tibetan Lama's Guidance for Caregivers" by Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche with David R. Shlim, MD, and"Empathy and the Practice of Medicine", edited by Howard Spiro. I highly recommend them...
until next time....
posted by kimberly at 7:02 PM
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