"When many cures are offered for a disease, it means the disease is not curable" -Anton Chekhov
''Once you tell people there's a cure for something, the more likely they are to pressure doctors to prescribe it.'' -Robert Ehrlich, drug advertising executive.
"Opinions are like sphincters, everyone has one." - Chris Rangel
Patients as Teachers: It’s certainly true that doctors continually learn from their patients, but there are a specific brand of patients who formally assume teaching roles - serving as living models for musculoskeletal exams, genital and rectal exams, or basic history and physical taking skills. My medical school relied heavily on these sorts of professional patients, and I think it was much to our advantage. The history and physical patients were from the VA hospital. (One of them told me they were paid in cigarette vouchers, but that was about fifteen years ago. I’m sure they’ve changed their policy by now.) It takes a very special person to be a model for genital and rectal exams, though. Ours inevitably came from the small liberal arts college town not far from our school. They had special training, and they were quite good. I’ve often had patients thank me for not hurting them during their pelvic exams - an ocurrence that always leaves me a little surprised. There must be a lot of people out there who examine the pelvis with a significant degree of discomfort. I give full credit to the patient teachers my medical school used. posted by Sydney on
10/13/2002 08:27:00 AM
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