Yemen Week...

Like the good cup of Yemen coffee I posted about on Sunday, this week has been the shake-up I really needed.

I've been in the pedi heme/onc clinic most of this week. Have seen a bunch of really cool kids (and parents). It's really nice to be in unfamiliar territory. I know very little about the heme/onc world. As a future practitioner in rural areas, I don't want to be the guy who misses the kiddo with leukemia, or the guy who has to send a family to a specialist 5 hours away if I can get the work up done myself.

What's made this week really good though, have been some simple reminders of how wonderful it is to be a doctor.

I volunteered in a free clinic Wednesday night (now that I have some free time this month). It's ENTIRELY volunteer. This clinic is getting meds to people who would otherwise not have access to meds. The crowd falls mostly into the under-insured category. It runs out of a private Ob-Gyn office. Very cool. Very simple. It's my cup of tea.

Then, today in clinic I saw 2 of my favorite patients, and one of my most complicated patients who is non-compliant-generally-drives-me-crazy-but-has-really-grown-on-me patients. I also saw 1 really cool kid, and one of my cool teens who we're starting on ADHD treatment. It was one of those days where I didn't care about running on time (and my patients didn't care either). It was just great to take the extra time to talk to patients. Amazing what you can learn in a few minutes. One patient and I talked about what his life was like before his health deteriorated, and for the first time I saw how much his life has really changed. One patient and I talked about his recent cruise with his partner, and their evolving plans to retire to Florida. One patient (a woman in her 80s) told me about one of her trips to London, and how having grown up in Jamaica she was able to visit all the places she had learned about as a school girl, and how one afternoon as she was taking the escalator out of the tube station one of the security guards stopped her, and it turned out to be a classmate from primary school some 30 years previous. Is that cool or what!

I don't know how doctors see 20-30 patients a day. What's the point? If you don't know who your patients are, why bother?

Maybe I'll write a few scripts for a good cup of Yemen Coffee. Free Refills, of course.

Cheers,
Brian.