What am I doing?

During the first meeting of a course ominously called The Medical Encounter, our small group of 10 or so first year medical students was asked, "As students, what are you able to offer your patients." The answer, I thought, was simple: precisely squat. I don't know anything at all about medicine and even less about being a doctor. I'm not kidding when I say that I often find myself believing that the causes and remedies of all sorts of conditions are absurd and nonsensical things. Like, oh, the skin on your leg's peeling off, haven't been drinking enough OJ, have you? Or, oh geez, I've been dizzy for a couple of weeks, I should have a beer or two before going to bed tonight. It seems I've come to subscribe to a strange, modern belief in the four humors. We all, I've come to believe, are little more than an amalgam of orange juice, coffee, beer, and water. And when that balance is skewed, havoc ensues.

I probably shouldn't be a doctor.

Nonetheless, I find myself every week, standing whitecoated and bestethoscoped, in front of dozens of patients. Patients who call me "doc." And they ask me questions. Questions about what's wrong with them. This doesn't happen often as I'm rarely left alone with patients, but when it does, I typically laugh and explain enthusiastically that I have no idea... Although, what would you say your daily beer and coffee intake is?

I don't mind pretending to be a doctor. I kind of like it. I'm even becoming convinced that it's an applicable professional skill. It's going to be a long time - much longer than the 7-10 years it'll take me to start earning a real salary - before I'll be able to get through the day without ever feeling as though I'm in over my head. During those times, I'll be expected to maintain a professional facade, finger my stethoscope diligently, thumb through esoteric notebooks from the pockets of my luxuriously white coat, and explain that "I'm not quite sure what's wrong with you Mr. Jones, it could be a number of things. But when I figure it out, you'll certainly be one of the people I tell."

Recently, I was visiting a patient who had been put through the ringer at a local hospital. She'd had a number of invasive tests to determine what was wrong with her, but none of them were conclusive. The patient, let's say Ms. Patient, was understandably distraught. The doctor listened to her worry and dither and weep, and then left the room to pick up some free samples of a particular pharmaceutical for her to take home. While he was out of the room, I found out that Ms. Patient was a teacher. I told her that, for a few years, I had been a first-grade teacher, too. We talked about her school, her students, and how her condition was affecting her work. After only a short while, the doctor came back in the room and explained how to use the new drug and how the medication might help. Ms. Patient had difficulty understanding his instructions, and she soon fell back into her pronounced, dewey-eyed, funk. The doc looked up at the ceiling, then over at me. Then he asked, "How's work going?"

She looked at me, then at him. "It's fine. You know. Same old."

"What grade do you teach again?"

Again, she looks at me, then at him. She looks more confused now than she did when she recounted those weeks she spent in and out of the hospital. She asks, "Why are you talking to me like this?"

And then, for a fleeting instant, I believed I might have something to offer this busy family practice staffed by one doctor who doesn't always have the time to heap generous amounts of conversation and compassion onto his patients. I thought, just maybe, I could provide a meaningful service that would contribute to the health, well-being, and happiness of a patient. This woman, I realized, was wildly deficient in orange juice, something the doctor had never even mentioned. Next time I'll be sure to bring a carton or two.