Perspectives of a Senior Medical Student

PERSPECTIVES OF A SENIOR MEDICAL STUDENT* DAVID O. STAATSi Experiences with Colleagues Finishing 3 years of medical school gives a perspective on medical education. How easy it is to look at the foibles ofthe underclassmen with a feeling of déjà vu. Their failure to wash after attendance in the anatomy laboratory, their failure to resist grossness at the dinner table, and their failure to remove the white coat upon leaving the hospital, descending the cafeteria line looking like Little Lord Fauntleroy-playsdoctor , are ones committed by most. Worse than this is the tendency to be deified prematurely, to put on supercilious airs and adopt a pompous bearing. To them the story of the queue outside the gates of heaven must be told. St. Peter tells the line that each must wait his turn, only to see an old bearded man with white coat and black bag rush by and through the gates. St. Peter answers the clamorous voices saying that that was God, thinking he's a doctor. These demeanors take on a more pathetic aspect when the tune is sung, "There is no time for the things of the world, for the task of becoming a physician proves too arduous." Then the monastic way of life becomes bleak. The weighty tomes become unpalatable and hard to digest; melancholy supervenes. How good to hear Die Zauberflöte and listen to Tamino's anguish before the Weissheitstempel at these times. To gauge one's cohorts is more difficult. In the midst of an exceedingly dull lecture, my eyes would drift over the class from my perch in the back row. What a heterogeneous group we were! I wondered what passed through their minds, the perception, the integration, and the summa. How would we look in our class portrait years from now? To whom would come fame or fortune or untying the Gordian knot? How many of us would be mere technicians, how many enlightened? What was I doing there? At these times of wondering, the figure drawings of the Johns Hopkins medical students [1] brought relief. They are the data from a lon- *This paper was submitted as an entry in the firstPerspectives Writing Award competition for authors 35 years old or younger. tAddress: Apartment 2203, 4850 Lake Park Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60615. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine ¦ Spring 1977 | 427 gitudinal study of heart disease in which the Draw-a-Person test was administered to a decade of medical students. The diversity of subject matter and rendering demonstrated reassuringly the great breadth of tastes and temperaments which medicine accommodates and gave credence to the notion that somewhere was my niche. To look beyond to the interns and residents practicing their craft gave one pause to reflect, "There too shall we follow." Even the attending physicians served to point the way. It seemed as if we were instars, shedding our skins periodically. This was the vision of Oliver Wendell Holmes when he said, Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea! Experience with Patients After 2 years ofwaiting, being sent on the wards was an epiphany. To probe the patient's most intimate experiences, to observe so intensely, to be confidant and comforter—these are opportunities that few people realize. This slice oflife thrown in the face helped to ease the lack offree time. It is fairly easy to accept patients' irritability, anger, and frustration, for during sickness one is allowed to regress temporarily to a more infantile, dependent level. To allow the patient this temporary regression and to restore his dignity requires the perception, patience, and tact that largely comprises the "bedside manner." These same qualities apply to dealings with other hospital personnel: to cheer up the languishing intern by being useful as well as ornamental, to be polite and informative to the nursing staff. Often it is more difficult to accept patients' gratitude with equanimity than their grouching, for praises are more often given to the...