It's been a LONG 4 years. Many things have happened, and more importantly, Michelle is truly ready to be a doctor now... or is she??
Talking about readiness to be a doctor, here is what Paul Kalanithi, a neurosurgeon and writer, wrote in his book "When Breath Becomes Air" before he passed away in March 2015 at age 36.
.....
Returning to the ward, I ran into Melissa. "Hey, do you know how last night's twin babies are doing?" I asked.
She
darkened. Baby A died yesterday afternoon; Baby B managed to live not
quite 24 hours, then passed away this morning... What possible sense
could be made, what words were there for comfort?
"Was
it the right choice to do an emergency C-section?" I asked. "No
question," she said. "It was the only shot they had." "What happens if
you don't?" "Probably, they die. Abnormal fetal heart tracings show
when the fetal blood turning acidemic, the cord is compromised
somehow."
"But how do you know when the tracing looks bad enough? Which is worse, being born too early or waiting too long to deliver?"
"Judgment call."
What
a call to make. In my life, had I ever made a decision harder than
choosing between a French dip and a Reuben? How could I ever learn to
make, and live with, such a judgment call? I still have a lot of
practical medicine to learn, but would knowledge alone be enough, with
life and death hanging in the balance? Surely intelligence wasn't
enough; moral clarity was needed as well. Somehow, I had to believe, I
would gain not only knowledge but wisdom, too.
....
I had learned something,
something not found in Hippocrates, Maimonides, or Osler: the
physician's duty is not to stave off death or return patients to their
old lives, but to take into our arms a patient and family whose lives
have disintegrated and work until they can stand back up and face, and
make sense of, their own existence.
.....
With
my renewed focus, informed consent -- the ritual by which a patient
signs a piece of paper, authorizing surgery -- became not a juridical
exercise in naming all the risks as quickly as possible, but an
opportunity to forge a covenant with a suffering compatriot: Here we are together, and here are the ways through -- I promise to guide you, as best as I can, to the other side.
