“The doctor will see you now.”
If only that were true.
I was forced to stop when I wrote this and reflect. How often have I felt not “seen” by my medical provider? How often have I experienced a rushed doctor or nurse practitioner or PA who either made no eye contact at all, was looking at their computer during the entire appointment, or worse, when they did look at me, it was painfully obvious there was no one there. Blank. Not present. Sure as hell not “seeing” me.
And I had to ask myself, how many times, Mary Ellen, have you done the same? How many times have I walked into a patient room before I took a few seconds to deep breathe, let thoughts of my previous patients go, and ask God for a connection, a real connection, to the soul in this room, who is so needing to be “seen”? This patient has waited for days, sometimes weeks, to be seen, to be heard, to have their fears and needs acknowledged. They have been waiting to be seen by someone who has some answers or, at the least, can get them to someone who does.
How many times have I looked at labs or an x-ray, took a brief cursory “history of present illness,” made a quick diagnosis, and got them out the door in double time, never really having “seen” them?
We all know you can literally see the fears dissolve, the defenses fall, when we just sit down, listen, and “connect”… when we see that patient in front of us on a deeper level.
This is so darned simple, but so easy to miss… and when we miss it, we dismiss the patient.
I am going to call this simple act of seeing patients Meaningful Medicine 101. Nothing happens in a meaningful way until we do this… not until the patient is seen.
As medical providers, Meaningful Medicine takes our awareness, our intentionality, and our commitment to connect. It’s seeing through how our patients dress, how clean they are, their politics, their education, or lack of it.
But it also takes time. Let’s just throw that on the table right now.
The probability of making a real patient connection goes down in direct proportion to how much “time” you are allotted to see that patient, approaching zero when that time slot is 10 minutes and under.
Corporate medicine dialing for dollars is often not willing to give you that time. I get it… they have to serve the financial bottom line first.
I need to plug rural healthcare sites here, as that is where I rediscovered how I could live out my purpose in life. You bring the intention, and rural and remote clinic sites supply the time. It is a perfect recipe for putting the meaning back in medicine and to actually seeing every patient.
And just an FYI…
Wherever you are today, I sincerely wish each of you “connection” in the medicine you bring to your patients. You are God’s ordained Healers.
And may you smile the next tine you hear, “The doctor will see you now.”