OK, so from reading the above it's clear to me I'm way too institutionalised to see this from a patient perspective, which is interesting (that's 4 years since graduation, of which 1 year spent in research, 4 months in a GP post the rest in hospital medicine). The hospital perspective colours things a lot too, and is very different to ongoing outpatient care. There are many good points here, but you are likely to spend at least the first 3 years of your training in an environment where 10 minute slots and long term treatment relationships don't exist.
Some very good advice I had in my 4th year still sticks with me, which is that you, as a person, will be a certain kind of doctor. We all will. We all find ways of practicing that suit us, and most practitioners will end up working in a manner that draws the kinds of patients that suit their way of practicing. This is especially true for GPs, who build up their lists of patients-who-like-them. (Friends who have gone into GP though do bemoan that if you are nice and interested in mental health, your partners will very quickly send a stream of heartsinks your way, and this is not necessarily sustainable.)
Working in hospital medicine there is less of a doctors-and-patients-choose-each-other dynamic. But working in teams gives us some room to act there. I do pretty good hand-holding (if I say so myself), and my empathy-face is pretty good too. I tend to accumulate a few sad people who need a bit of both in whatever job I do. Tonight I'm on nights, covering (among others) the ward I worked on last month. It gives me enormous satisfaction to see a couple of my saddies tonight and get smiles from both.
So yeah, practice your listening, your empathy, your communication (oh so much practice that), because they're important in all jobs. But don't forget that patient satisfaction can't be your only measure of success. Tonight I endured an ear bashing from a(n otherwise delightful) lady about how awful it was the day resident kept her waiting four hours for a senna prescription. In those four hours I know he spent 2 of them at an arrest and 1 and a half with a peri-arrest COPD patient. (I have a theory that in most cases, for inpatients, the volume of complaint is inversely proportional to the sickness of the patient, but that's another whine).
That's probably enough cynicism. Good luck with the thinky thoughts on all of this.
no subject
Some very good advice I had in my 4th year still sticks with me, which is that you, as a person, will be a certain kind of doctor. We all will. We all find ways of practicing that suit us, and most practitioners will end up working in a manner that draws the kinds of patients that suit their way of practicing. This is especially true for GPs, who build up their lists of patients-who-like-them. (Friends who have gone into GP though do bemoan that if you are nice and interested in mental health, your partners will very quickly send a stream of heartsinks your way, and this is not necessarily sustainable.)
Working in hospital medicine there is less of a doctors-and-patients-choose-each-other dynamic. But working in teams gives us some room to act there. I do pretty good hand-holding (if I say so myself), and my empathy-face is pretty good too. I tend to accumulate a few sad people who need a bit of both in whatever job I do. Tonight I'm on nights, covering (among others) the ward I worked on last month. It gives me enormous satisfaction to see a couple of my saddies tonight and get smiles from both.
So yeah, practice your listening, your empathy, your communication (oh so much practice that), because they're important in all jobs. But don't forget that patient satisfaction can't be your only measure of success. Tonight I endured an ear bashing from a(n otherwise delightful) lady about how awful it was the day resident kept her waiting four hours for a senna prescription. In those four hours I know he spent 2 of them at an arrest and 1 and a half with a peri-arrest COPD patient. (I have a theory that in most cases, for inpatients, the volume of complaint is inversely proportional to the sickness of the patient, but that's another whine).
That's probably enough cynicism. Good luck with the thinky thoughts on all of this.