Two Wrongs Don't Make A Right

It has been difficult for me to accept that 'right' and 'wrong' actions are often not well defined, and that the best we can hope for is just to do our best.

I recently had to visit a patient with a chronic illness as part of my GP placement, which allows us to learn what it is like to be a patient and also examine the doctor-patient relationship, rather than teaching us anything specifically medical at this early juncture in the course. The lady in question had a form of arthritis, for which she had had ineffective surgery. Our role was to ask questions about how it felt to be in her position, her experience of the health service etc. At one point, I askedher if she felt angry because of her illness, or whether she had an acceptance of it. She began to become tearful, which continued into the interview.

I felt awful, and felt that her tearfulness had been as a result of some insensitivity on my part. However, it transpired that she had recently discontinued antidepressants due to their sedative action, and that her unhappiness was probably largely related to this. When the GP asked how she was, and I told her that she had been tearful and rather blue, she asked me if I thought she had been simply having a bad day, to which I relplied: 'No - I believe that she is still depressed.' The doctor believed me and said she would see to the patient as quicly as she could. Although I was concerned that I may have caused the patient some sadness, I know that some good has come of it. I hope I don't have to make all my patients cry, though...

'Cause I Gotta Have Faith

It's amazing how quickly your certainty in things can be shaken. When you look at something every day, it's easy to miss the little details that mark the passage of time and indicate change; the peeling paint on the ceiling that you don't see any more, or the gradual change of the light as summer shifts into autumn and the days shorten. I think it's normal to assume that your life will follow a route that you have planned out, that everything will fall into place. When life doesn't run according to plan, or people do not act in the manner you expect, I think it's easy to be discouraged. I have recently realised the importance in faith. I do not necessarily mean faith in a religious sense, although I think that for some, that is how it is manifest; however, I believe that all of us have faith in something, and it is not until this faith, this certainty is shaken that we realise its importance.

For example, some of us believe in 'the system;' that the bad guys will be caught, and that justice will prevail. Others appeal to a higher authority, and some have faith in the power of human compassion. My faith has always been that there is a reason for everything, however obscure that reason may seem to us at the time. When I failed, upon originally applying, to get into medical school, I believed I had been wrong about the reasons behind our lives; I realise now that the time I spent believing that I would never be a doctor made me realise how much I needed it

. It was not until I lost this faith that I realised how important it had been in the way I made decisions; I am glad that this faith has been restored, and the world seems a more ordered place. Circumstances at the moment are testing this belief, this faith once more; but I am discovering that change is rarely 'good' or 'bad,' but simply change.