Cancer is a heartbreaking disease to me. It ruins kidneys, brains, lungs through primary masses or paraneoplastic effects and I'm having a hard time even continuing to write this.
All I can do is help out my team with good history-taking and physical exam skills, and be a kind person to this patient. I don't have any special skills or plans at this point in my training that can turn the tide of disease.
As a medical student, you have more time than the interns carrying 10+ patients, so take the time to connect with people.
Every disease has a psychological and emotional component, don't ever forget that in your training.
Help people be comfortable, help them relax. And to do this, you have to be a strong individual. You have to be a good listener, you have to stay there when your patient is crying or telling you a sad story, you have to look at them in the eye when you are telling them a diagnosis or a plan. There is therapy in the confidence you exude.
Some of this being a warm person who connects with people sometimes is a lot to bear, because you get afraid you might get attached to a patient, or think about them too much.
You will meet patients with terminal disease who are in pain and suffer, who so afraid and sad that they cannot sleep or eat well, patients who you cannot cure or operate on. But remember when a scalpel, gamma knife, radiation, or chemotherapy can't touch cancer, you can still do your own bit of therapy for them by listening to them and being someone who they can connect with in their disease.
These next days until discharge will be challenging for me emotionally, and so much more for the patient and their family. But people do go onto a better place, and people do heal. People can be capable of great, kind acts. People can make differences. Don't forget that.
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