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Tuesday, August 16, 2005Mary Duffy was lying in bed half-asleep on the morning after her breast cancer surgery in February when a group of white-coated strangers filed into her hospital room. Without a word, one of them - a man - leaned over Ms. Duffy, pulled back her blanket, and stripped her nightgown from her shoulders. Weak from the surgery, Ms. Duffy, 55, still managed to exclaim, 'Well, good morning,' a quiver of sarcasm in her voice. But the doctor ignored her. He talked about carcinomas and circled her bed like a presenter at a lawnmower trade show, while his audience, a half-dozen medical students in their 20's, stared at Ms. Duffy's naked body with detached curiosity, she said. After what seemed an eternity, the doctor abruptly turned to face her. 'Have you passed gas yet?' he asked. 'Those are his first words to me, in front of everyone,' said Ms. Duffy, who runs a food service business near San Jose, Calif. 'I tell him, 'No, I don't do that until the third date,' ' she said. 'And he looks at me like he's offended, like I'm not holding up my end of the bargain.' I distinctly remember my attendings in medical school and residency making an effort to teach us not to behave that way. But then, I went to a touchy-feely medical school, in a touchy-feely era and entered what some would call a touchy-feely specialty. There was one place, however, that stands out in my memory for this kind of behavior - and that was the VA hospital. The attendings there considered themselves teachers first and doctors second. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to guess that the same attitude prevails in most university settings, too. That's one benefit of a community-based approach to medical education - the attendings consider themselves physicians first and foremost. (And they actually have long-standing relationships with their patients.) posted by Sydney on 8/16/2005 05:10:00 PM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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