STUDENT ARTICLE
by Pete Newman, MS, OMS-II
October 2019 I Tarrant County Physician I 13
DO
peculiar and unexpected question posed to
me from my six-year-old nephew, holding
a small plastic stegosaurus in his hands.
“Yes, sometimes they do,” I replied.
“Why?”
My thoughts were suddenly a
whirlwind of unpleasant memories. The years I have
spent in Medicine have granted me experiences of all
types.
I found myself at a neurologist’s clinic, standing outside
the room of a young woman in her thirties, watching as
the doctor tried to compose himself before delivering
a catastrophic diagnosis to his patient. “You have
Huntington’s disease” is a phrase that not many of us
ever have to witness. She sat there in silence, staring at
the sink. After a moment her husband put his arm around
her. One can only imagine the thoughts that were running
through her head. The patient looked up and asked if she
could be alone. When the neurologist and I got back to
his office at the end of the hallway, he sat down at his
desk, looking out the window in complete silence. “This
is terrible,” he said, his voice breaking.
I found myself at an urgent care center, standing in front
of a chest x-ray with the doctor, looking at what may be
lung cancer. A witty, outgoing triathlete in his mid-40’s
from out of town, presenting with a dry cough during
allergy season; clearly just allergies, right? Auscultation
on the right suggested otherwise. A quick one view chest
x-ray showed what looked like a mass in the right middle
lobe. “I noticed something on your x-ray.” The patient
turned white as the table paper. I swear, it was like he had
just seen a ghost.
“Nothing is definite yet. I sent it off for an over-read,
so we should get the results back soon,” the doctor
reassured him.
I could tell, he was expecting the worst. The next hour
felt like an eternity as we awaited the results; I can only
imagine what it must have been like for him. The phone
rang; radiology was on the other end. I couldn’t make
out everything, but I did hear “2.2cm…right middle lobe…
neoplasm until proven otherwise.” The doctor hung up,
let out a long sigh and put her head in her hands. We
reentered the room, and the patient’s head shot up in
hopeful expectation. Nothing could have prepared him
for what was to follow. The doctor moved the stool over
in front of him and sat down and began to explain. When
she was done, she moved closer to him and placed her
hand on his shoulder, and he immediately wrapped her up
in a desperate embrace. She reciprocated. They shared
a very special and traumatic moment, doctor and patient
crying in each other’s arms.
I found myself back in the Emergency Department of
a hospital, overlooking a young boy who drowned in his
parents’ pool. We worked on him for over an hour, trying
to bring him back. We did everything we could, but he
was too far gone. I could see the dread in the eyes of the
attending as she called the time of death. She knew what
she had to do. The mother was led from the waiting room
into room four, and as soon as we pulled the curtain back,
she let out an unearthly bellow as she ran over to the
bed. The attending followed and placed her arm around
the mother, who then immediately turned around and fell,
weeping, into the doctor’s arms. I noticed as a single tear
rolled down the attending’s face before she quickly wiped
it away and excused herself, walking briskly out the back
door of the ER. I followed. I discovered her around the
corner, kneeling against the wall, sobbing.
I’m not sure how long I sat there in silence, thinking.
“Well, Travis… sometimes doctors can get boo boos
just like us,” I said as I pointed to the crinkled band-aid on
his elbow. I’m not sure if he fully understood. I’m still not
sure if I fully understand the depths of what physicians
can experience in their most painful patient encounters.
Maybe one day.
A
DOCTORS
CRY?