A chat to some med Students

April 28, 2010

Today, I chatted to 2nd Year Medical Students who have chosen to specialise in Oncology. The are covering an area which involves relaying diagnosis and prognosis to a patient.

My role was to provide them with some insight of my experience and how I thought the Attitude of the Dr. can change the way a Cancer Survivor views his/her diagnosis.

Firstly let me define a cancer survivor. If you have been diagnosed with Cancer you become a Cancer Survivor, whether you are in remission, or fighting cancer or have been beaten by Cancer or even if you have a loved one suffering with cancer.

Although I was briefed by the Lecturer before the session, I was still apprehensive of what to expect and of the questions that would be asked but was comforted by the knowledge that my sharing was going to help shape the minds of our future doctors and help pave the way for a better Doctor-patient experience.

As I opened the lecture room door, I felt a sense of concern as I saw eyes belonging to students who could be aged no more than 21 staring back at me. Eyes filled with hope for the future and faces with expressions which conveyed the invincibility of youth. Was I too shatter their realities with my story, was I to render them speechless at the rarity and medical incurablelity of my typer of cancer. Or was I to encourage and inspire these young minds. Was it the truth they needed. Or was that too much. Perhaps it was hope they needed.


So I shared my story and changed grim details to ones with room for hope. Changing terminality into immortality. Changing a poor prognosis to one who lacked enough research. Changing medical information to personal transformation.

But despite this, the obvious shock and disbelief which presented facial expressions they were not even aware of left me reflecting.

I was never told that I had cancer only that I had a growth, a lesion, a tumour, a malignant neoplasm. Ofcourse I knew what these medical euphamisms meant, but I was never actually told those words. " You have cancer" It would have been so simple. 10 million people per year are diagnosed with cancer. You are never told that people are diagnosed with malignant neoplasms! So simplicity was the key. The truth another, perhaps like me Dr's want to shield us from the harsh realities that we will face but there is no changing the truth, you can make it a bit more glamorous, but the facts remain the facts.

Dr's are not God a fact which Dr's at times forget or perhaps their degrees have not allowed them to think otherwise. That even though they use every medical avenue available to them, they are still unable to determine the exact time and date of the end of life. That this power does not belong to them. That they are just an instrument of healing that has come from a greater power which is not documented in medical textbooks. I was living proof of that.

All statistics show that my time will near its end and yet since my diagnosis my time has only neared its beginning.

Then the questions came, the what ifs, the could have been's. My reply I cant change what happened but I can change the way I wish to see it and my attitude towards it. My advice: to be simple, to be truthful and to acknowledge the limits of medical knowledge. To encourage and support and to be part of the journey of not only the patient but of life.

So I left them with hope that altho' their medical knowledge will always be limited. Their belief should never be...

And so I closed the door leaving eyes filled with tears, but still filled with hope and invincibility.