:: The Car Lot ::

Monday, April 25, 2005

Yes it's the movie with Robin Williams and Monica Potter, who was killed by a mental patient at their free hospital. I was in 3rd year of medical school and the head of anatomy along with the dean had us watch this movie. It was a crappy pirated VCD and I only really just got the essense of the movie. I was thinking they made us watch it because they felt guilty. They were genuinely good professors who cared about their students, those who could keep up anyway. I did identify with William's character Patch, but only superficially. I didn't understand. Today, almost 3 years later I saw the movie again. And the brush fire is burning. I was thinking that no wonder malpractice and negligence law suits became so popular, some of these doctors were real assholes. If you remember the scene with the juvenile onset diabetes who would probably have her leg surgically amputated, you'll get what I mean. When the graduation scene came along and the speaker said in a manorly almost regal, knightly tone, "You are now doctors", it sent shivers down my spine. Maybe because it is one of the hardest things you could accomplish. Not just in medicine, in any course or profession. I was never the model student, a little too much time playing basketball, sleeping in class. I couldn't help it. I even slept during my board reveiw. Probably why I had to spend an extra semester for obstetrics. Inspite of this though I did okay. I am a doctor now and admittedly not the best, but honest. Honesty is a luxury nowadays and be glad you can afford integrity. "If you treat the disease you may win or lose, but if you treat the patient, I guarantee you, you will always win." -Hunter Patch Adams. I saw Patch Adams when he visited Manila and held a seminar during the first few months of my internship. He was onstage with baggy pants highly colorful, loud even. He is a revolutionary. Interns were allowed to comment and ask questions and once again purity was corrupted by interns who had never faced adversity in their lives. They were people defined by the watches they wore, the cellular phones they had, one even asked for a hug. You get the picture. We were the minority and I bit my tongue, my fellow interns did the same. We had a clerkship program lasting twelve months, you could spend almost 11 of them in government hospitals. Ill equiped, undermanned, overcrowded. These were not conditions for healing. They were not conditions for living. We saw it, we smelled it, we breathed it, we lived it. It is easy to lose compassion in government hospitals in the Philippines. But that's where I found it, and I have tried to hold on to it eversince. I have a small out patient clinic now with my wife and we don't have many patients, such are the trying times. It is hard to resist not treating patients who you know would better be handled by a specialist but we do resist and advice and refer them to a physician better equiped. I guess it's an unspoken rule, an unspoken virtue, an unspoken principle. Unspoken, because I think if we had to speak it, it would be purity corrupted once again. Patch Adams message is not meant to be celebrated amongst doctors, it is meant to be celebrated amongst patients.

Dr. Jayson Arellano Left the Car Lot @ 9:49 PM

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