Thank you for sharing Dr Zha! I wish more doctors had your insight and compassion. It’s so important not to make moral judgement of the patient and instead meet them where they’re at.
We've been "conditioned" do blame the patients throughout education, and I started off like that too! So much of my learning has been really "unlearning!"
It is so rare, so refreshing, to read an essay by a medical person that reveals so well, the stark choices facing those who toil in the fields. Work or starve, in the end, is what most of them face. I doubt whether many have ever read "Grapes of Wrath", the classic by John Steinbeck written in the great depression about migrant labor, and what some of our fellow humans endure so that we can have food on the table.
Nearly 100 years later, everything has changed, and nothing has changed.
I wonder if physicians know how difficult it can be to make an appointment, especially with a specialist. For example, I've been on a waitlist for an appointment with a specialist physician group at an academic hospital with 20+ physicians at several locations. I've been waiting 9 months so far, just to make an appointment, which could still be 6-12 months out.
Thank you for sharing Dr Zha! I wish more doctors had your insight and compassion. It’s so important not to make moral judgement of the patient and instead meet them where they’re at.
We've been "conditioned" do blame the patients throughout education, and I started off like that too! So much of my learning has been really "unlearning!"
I’m so grateful to you for being willing to do the hard work of unlearning - not everyone is!
When you said, Cindy doesn't just get it, she feels it. That landed so deeply for me!
It is so rare, so refreshing, to read an essay by a medical person that reveals so well, the stark choices facing those who toil in the fields. Work or starve, in the end, is what most of them face. I doubt whether many have ever read "Grapes of Wrath", the classic by John Steinbeck written in the great depression about migrant labor, and what some of our fellow humans endure so that we can have food on the table.
Nearly 100 years later, everything has changed, and nothing has changed.
Indeed. Those who forget history are destined to repeat it.
I wonder if physicians know how difficult it can be to make an appointment, especially with a specialist. For example, I've been on a waitlist for an appointment with a specialist physician group at an academic hospital with 20+ physicians at several locations. I've been waiting 9 months so far, just to make an appointment, which could still be 6-12 months out.
Yeah me too, I waited for 3 months for my ENT referral and by the time I went my symptoms had resolved...making diagnosis very difficult!