Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Conflict of Interest

One of the things that has been most challenging this year is balancing the excitement that I feel when diagnosing a new illness or learning about it and the compassion that I need to feel for my patients, who are real people who are suffering. My team diagnosed one of my patients with an uncommon autoimmune disease, and I have to admit, it was kind of thrilling to try to figure out what was going on. I felt more than a little bit victorious when we found the correct diagnosis. Then I had to stop and think...this disease carries a poor prognosis for my patient, who is young and about to get married. He is going to have such a difficult life now...better now that we know how to treat the illness...but really hard all the same.

I wonder how doctors in the "real world" handle this. Obviously, I wouldn't have gotten into this field if i didn't find the prospect of diagnosing and treating illness exciting. I just don't want to ever treat my patients like "cases" and not like people.

Monday, February 5, 2007

Starting this blog thing....

So, here goes. This is the second blog I've tried to start. But this one might stick. I hope. We'll see. :)