Saturday, November 11, 2006

Helping People

The following is a paper I wrote (under considerable time constraints) about my experiences so far in my internal medicine rotation. It was for class credit, but I hope you enjoy it as well.

Reflection Paper #1
Tim Arakawa
November 9, 2006


During medical school interviews, one of the most common reasons that prospective students give for choosing medicine is “I want to help people.” I repeated that line as well during my interviews and genuinely meant it. However, somehow during the first two years (not to mention the additional four years of research for the PhD program), the driving motivation for my career choice began to get lost in textbooks, journal articles, and written examinations. Fortunately, returning to the wards has helped me to refresh my original desire to help others physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

I happened to be rotating through the VA hospital when I met Mr. L. He was admitted for pneumonia and had a rather uneventful recovery. Nonetheless, Mr. L was also an avid smoker and, since he was potentially at risk for numerous pulmonary and cardiovascular problems, I took the opportunity to speak with him about his nicotine addiction. After further probing, he seemed to be on the verge of the contemplative stage so I told him that we had many resources to help him stop smoking, and to let me know if he was interested. He didn’t mention anything about it for the next few days, but, before he left the hospital, he told me that he would talk to his wife and hoped they could quit smoking together. I gave him some handouts on smoking the morning he was discharged and I still distinctly remember seeing him resting in his hospital bed, eyeglasses perched on his nose, intently reading the potential consequences of his smoking habit. It felt good to make an impact on his lifestyle choices.

I remember examining another patient in the ER one night, although our first meeting was not under the best of circumstances. Mr. W had an extremely altered level of consciousness secondary to severe intoxication with alcohol and amphetamines as well as some minor head trauma due to falling. When I saw him in the ER, he could not communicate well, responded minimally to commands, and just stared at me with bloodshot eyes. As a new medical student, I remember the frustration of not being able to get any history from him and doing an incomplete physical exam. We just admitted him and treated him for drug overdose. The next morning, he was able to say a few words and, by the following day, he was communicating fine. Although Mr. W had some serious medical issues, it felt good to be able to restore him to his normal mental state.

At Riverside County Regional Medical Center, I had a patient who presented with cough, shortness of breath, and back pain. After a complete work-up, we finally determined that Mr. R had lung adenocarcinoma with metastases to his bones, a poor prognosis. He was young (in his forties) and had smoked for decades. I accompanied the senior resident to break the bad news to him. Unfortunately, the senior resident was in a rush and didn’t take the time to let him process the new information so afterward I stayed behind and explained the diagnosis and answered his questions. I appreciated the opportunity to help him emotionally when others were too busy to care.

But perhaps the best part of medicine is to reach the spiritual needs of my patients. This is the real reason I wanted to become a doctor. Whether it means praying with a patient recently diagnosed with terminal illness (I prayed with Mr. R) or leaving a spiritual booklet with a patient struggling with why God allows good people to suffer, doctors have a unique opportunity to address the whole person. Mr. A was a good example of one who had spiritual questions and felt safe enough to ask me about them. I shared a Bible text from his personal Spanish Bible lying at his bedside and left him a booklet that contained answers to his questions. Since he is still in the hospital as I write this, I plan to spend more time with him as I am able.

As medical students at Loma Linda University, we are taught to treat the whole person, including the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. Combining this with compassionate, competent care has been a dream of mine and “helping people” continues to provide fulfillment for me as a physician-in-training.

Epilogue: Mr. A is currently reading Steps to Christ in Spanish and looking each Bible verse up in his Santa Biblia. We have had numerous long talks about spiritual things during his hospital stay. Today we talked about how Jesus gives us the power to live a life free from pecado (sin). We prayed together that the Holy Spirit would guide him as he studies God's Word. He will be receiving a Spanish version of Desire of Ages shortly.

4 Comments:

Blogger Rachel and Eric Nelson said...

That's great Tim. Glad to see the witnessing is going well. Hope you're also keeping up with the sleeping.

Call me sometime after you finish inpatient. Need to ask you a GYC related question.

eric

Sunday, November 12, 2006 8:14:00 PM  
Blogger Andrew and Monica Nelson said...

It was great to work with you during your time at the VA. I am always amazed at how many opportunities there are to talk to people about lifestyle changes. God provides so many ways to witness! Pray for us and our patients and we'll do the same for you.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006 11:02:00 PM  
Blogger Janie =) said...

Oh, yes. I remember the good times at RCRMC for Internal Medicine. No wonder you've been MIA. Do you ever see my mom? She works in Same Day Surgery. Hey...let's set up a TJM meeting for when you're post-call or post-post-call or something. Life gets better on outpatient medicine. =)

Thursday, November 16, 2006 7:10:00 PM  
Blogger Eagle said...

Happy Thanksgiving! We thank God for you and Deborah. What a blessing you both have been!

Love,
Mom and Dad

Monday, November 20, 2006 11:06:00 AM  

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