A Country Doctor Writes:

“Saturday’s child works hard for a living”, the saying goes. I was born on a Saturday afternoon in July. My father had to work, so he missed my birth. My mother always told me that working hard was the only way one could ever achieve anything in this world. I was also raised to believe that I was special, although still not quite living up to my potential.

Needless to say, I grew up to be a hard-driving perfectionist. I chose to become a doctor, not because my mother wanted me to, but out of my own experiences being a somewhat sickly child, even hospitalized at an early age with belly pains.

Like many doctors, I have always pushed myself to deliver the best care I can to my patients, modeled after what medicine was like when I first fell in love with the role of the doctor. My ingrained work ethic, steel trap memory, knack for finding polite words in difficult situations and my ability to switch between hyperfocusing and pulling back to see the big picture have helped me in my career. These qualities have also to some degree kept me from living my personal life to the fullest. My perfectionism and my tendency to want things “my way” have caused me to miss noticing many of life’s small pleasures.

What I didn’t learn early on was how to play and how to listen to my own needs, or how to “go with the flow”. My ability to forge – force, if you will – a positive outcome out of a chaotic situation that others might have called impossible has been my burnout skill.

There was a time when all my appointments ran exactly on time, sometimes causing both me and my patients undue stress. There have been countless situations where I have wasted minutes and hours of my allotted lifetime fretting about why things aren’t the way I want them to be, instead of just figuring out how to deal with what is.

Two books I recently came across have illustrated this phenomenon. One book is about finding the unique purpose we have in life, where our parents are vehicles but not drivers of our evolution toward fulfilling our calling. The other book is about the active role our parents can or should play.

The Jungian therapist James Hillman, in “The Soul’s Code, In search of character and calling”, writes about the Acorn Theory. He believes in the notion that we are all born with a specific purpose or calling that works to find a way to express itself naturally in our lives.

I have certainly felt as if moved by a force other than my own through my education, emigration and into my professional career, as a physician and a writer. The Acorn analogy fit my life until a few years ago, but now I think I would be better served by learning how to be less driven and by not always resisting the inevitable changes happening all around me.

New Age and Ayurvedic physician Deepak Chopra’s book, “The Seven Spiritual Laws for Parents” describes how we as children need to learn how to “go with the flow” and not resist Nature’s way.

Chopra’s advice to parents rang in my ears as words this middle-aged physician needed to hear as a young child. I also need to repeat them to myself today as I watch the kind of medicine I first fell in love with fade further and further away into the distance, ever again succeeded by one reincarnation after another.

Chopra says of The Law of Least Resistance:

“The biggest obstacle is our work ethic, which holds that more work reaps greater rewards. There are two flaws in this. First, Nature herself operates through least effort – the laws of physics dictate that any process, from the spin of an electron to the spin of a galaxy, must function according to the most efficient expenditure of energy, with the least drag. Second, human advancement always comes through ideas, inspiration and desire. These occur spontaneously; there is no amount of work that can force inspiration, or desire, or even consistently good ideas….

When you assume that other people exist to block you from achieving what you want, you have no choice but to constantly defend yourself….

Each of us is responsible for how we feel, what we wish for and how we decide to approach life’s challenges. The highest responsibility is fulfilled not by doing a huge amount of work but by doing the work of spirit in an attitude of joy and creativity. This is the only way that life without struggle becomes possible.”

I need to remind myself often: My calling is to be a doctor, a healer. I need to always view my work in a larger perspective than this season’s medicopolitical fashion trends. I need to not feel paralyzed by what the healthcare system is like or what tools are not immediately at my disposal, be it medications, medical supplies, or technological tools. I am a doctor with more resources than most fellow physicians on this planet. I have patients who trust me with their illnesses, their stories, their hopes and their fears.

And this is how it flows, through me, effortlessly: After a day of really engaging with my patients instead of thinking about the flaws in the health care system, I feel good about my work, if not always energized. And I have time and space for the other parts of my life.

I firmly believe that my acorn, in Hillman’s analogy, contained the seed for me to be fulfilled all my days as a doctor. Curiously, shortly after I was born, my parents planted an acorn at our camp. Every year they took a picture of me standing next to the young oak. After all these years, it still doesn’t look like much of an oak tree, shadowed by an older, large pine standing much too close.

My own acorn has done better, and I intend to nurture it and give it the space it needs to continue to grow the way Nature intended it. I have arrived. I need to cultivate joy and creativity. I need to go with the flow.

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“Fear is more pain than is the pain it fears.”

Sir Philip Sidney

“In our specialist age it has, in fact, become a major function of the general physician to examine thoroughly, to explain simply, to reassure as far as may be, and to protect his patients from unnecessary medical or surgical interventions.”

John A Ryle, MD, 1948 in The Journal of Mental Science, published by The Royal Medico-Psychological Association

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Re-reading my post about Morbus Propedeuticus, Medical Students’ Disease, I realized I had inadvertently used the word “gracefully” in my account of how my instructor examined my enlarged lymph nodes and reassured me that they were not suspicious. My intention had been to say “graciously”. For a moment I thought I should correct my slip-up, but then I realized that what Dr Bruun did wasn’t just gracious, but actually quite graceful. His whole demeanor conveyed sincerity, kindness and patience. He made me feel completely reassured and relieved of my fears.

Every day, I encounter fear of some degree in patients, often unfounded; it is not the patients with cancer or heart disease or poorly controlled diabetes that share their fear behind my closed exam room door, but the patients with ill-defined symptoms or no symptoms at all.

I have a few patients who always seem to be concerned about one bodily sensation or another, but then there are some that have only one disease they are worried about getting. This predicament is different from hypochondriasis. It goes by the name nosophobia, literally “fear of disease”.

Nosophobia can be triggered by learning about a disease affecting someone we know, by reading or watching accounts of dreadful diseases, or by receiving inadequate information or reassurance when we do seek medical evaluation of a symptom.

In our “information age” patients often look up their symptoms on the Internet, and come across endless possible explanations, or differential diagnoses. The problem with random searches is that the results also tend to be randomly arranged and not ranked according to the person’s specific presentation or risk factors, and not at all according to how common or rare each disease is.

When we as physicians evaluate patients with undiagnosed symptoms or concerns over a specific disease, our thoroughness, thoughtfulness and demeanor can feed or quell nosophobia.

John A. Ryle, MD, in his Maudsley Lecture, quoted at the beginning of this post, writes about physicians inadvertently causing nosophobia in their patients:

“Again and again patients discharged from hospital, when asked what the doctors have told them, say, “ Oh, they didn’t tell me anything”. Often they have spent long periods in the ward and been elaborately investigated, all the time waiting and wondering and uninformed. Could anything be more conducive to the initiation or aggravation of anxiety than experience of this kind? Probably the divided responsibilities…..in institutions and the inexperience of house-officers are partly to blame, but the mechanistic, objective character of modern investigations also tends to distract the doctor’s from the patients’ thought and to direct attention away from private sensibilities and present needs. I have even watched air-raid victims being admitted, examined, X-rayed and transfused without a word of comfort or reassurance being given to them by those concerned.”

Ryle’s lecture was published in an obscure journal dedicated to what we now call Mind-Body Medicine. Today, even large mainstream institutions like Harvard Medical School have entire Mind-Body Medicine departments. But before thinking we have come a long way since 1948, we should remember that Mind-Body Medicine isn’t something separate from everyday primary medicine; it is possibly the biggest part of primary care. That doesn’t mean every primary care physician needs to practice full-fledged psychiatry. It does, however, require us not to be mere body technicians, but real doctors; human, humane, humanistic.

Ryle puts it this way:

“As a profession we are losing, in the process of developing our technologies, something of the philosophy, humanism and courage of the older physicians.

Our loss of philosophy is shown in our inability to piece together the components of an illness or an individual, to assess the roles of mind and body in morbid experience and to balance the needs of both –  in brief, in our inability to see things “whole”. Our loss of humanism appears in our too partial success in assessing the psychological needs of the individual and the social needs of the community. Our loss of courage is chiefly manifest in our present-day unwillingness to make pronouncements without subjecting our patients to elaborate investigations. These, while often necessary and valuable, can also prolong anxiety, and leave our own doubts and questions still unanswered.

Without courage to accept clinical responsibilities we cannot impart courage to our patients. Without a reasoned clarity in diagnosis and a reasoned hopefulness in prognosis we cannot properly counter fear. In the majority of cases it is possible to give to patients a simple interpretation of symptoms; a simple idea as to how they should be regarded; a set of sound reasons should further inquiry become necessary; a provisional prognosis, in which the emphasis should be on the better chance whenever possible; and an intelligent plan of action. For the busy practitioner or hospital surgeon or physician, it may well be impossible to devote time and thought to the more profound psychiatric methods, but there should always be time to examine carefully, to explain clearly, and to reassure as fully as the circumstances allow.”

I think it is easy for us doctors of today to lose our courage with all the scrutiny and second-guessing we are subjected to. I also think it has become more difficult to find the time to “examine thoroughly” and “explain simply”, as Dr Ryle puts it, and to take a good history. But without those ingredients our reassurance carries no weight. Without them the health care squirrel wheel keeps turning faster and faster at ever greater cost as insecure and worried patients churn around and around.

Ryle’s call to protect our patients from “unnecessary medical or surgical interventions” is, of course, another way of saying “first, do no harm”. In our continuing efforts to never leave any stones unturned, tests undone or cautions undelivered, we are probably causing more harm, at least in the form of fear and anxiety, than we would ever like to admit.

It was spring. My medical school class, two years along in our five-and-a-half year endeavor, had earned the “medicinae kandidat” degree. We were now worthy of leaving the basic sciences and research center on the outskirts of town and starting our preparatory clinical, “propedeutic” semester at the University Hospital. In Sweden, at that time, we used a lot of Latin words and phrases. Crohn’s disease was  Morbus Crohn, chart notes listed physical exam findings by Latin names for the bodily organs: Cor for the heart, Pulm(ones) for the lungs, Hepar for the liver, etc.

Uppsala Academic Hospital was an imposing campus, with several tall, white towers, housing the most modern wards, laboratories and operating theaters. We were relegated to a pink stucco building that housed the old tuberculosis clinic.

The physical exam course was taught by a couple of older pulmonologists. At first they struck many of us as relics from a bygone era, but as the course went on, our respect grew. These unassuming physicians could percuss a patient’s chest wall and describe in detail what the x-ray would look like, they made us feel the tip of the spleen by turning the patient on his right side, they measured jugular venous pulsations and pedal pulses.

Sometimes we had real patients with remarkably abnormal findings to examine, but we often were charged with examining each other for assessment of normal physical exam findings.

My partner for the Lymphatic System module was Sven Björk, a slow-talking kid from the very north of Sweden. He had jet black, completely straight hair and a broad face with eyes set wide apart. He was part Same, the native, reindeer-herding nomadic population from north of the Arctic Circle.

Sven was a bright young man. He had memorized the anatomy quicker than I had, well ahead of the exercise. Yet he seemed nervous. I soon found out why: he had noticed several enlarged submandibular and anterior cervical glands on himself. We compared each other’s necks and jaw lines, but found to our surprise that our lymph nodes were about the same size.

My glands had been big as long as I could remember; I had gone through repeated strep infections. In second grade I missed 42 days in just one semester. Sven had never had strep throat, and he didn’t remember feeling any enlarged lymph nodes before, but he had never checked himself quite like this before.

Our instructor came over to see how we were doing. Sven cleared his throat and started telling Doctor Bruun what both Sven and I had noticed on his neck.

The fifty-something doctor put his hands on Sven’s neck. Methodically, he worked his way up, down and around the neck and down into the armpits. He had Sven lie down on the exam table, supine for the liver, on his right side for the spleen, then reached for the lymph nodes in Sven’s groin. His face was serious as he whisked Sven off to his office, leaving me standing, feeling my own cervical lymph nodes, bigger than Sven’s.

Sven was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Disease, a type of lymphoma that wasn’t quite as easily cured then as it is now, but Sven responded well to the treatment and didn’t miss much school.

The rest of our class, me included, went through a prolonged case of what our instructors called Morbus Propedeuticus, Medical Student’s Disease. It is natural to worry that you might have some of the bad diseases you learn about in medical school. Seeing one of your classmates develop cancer sets the stage for more than the normal amount of hypochondriasis.

I realized that even though Sven’s and my lymph nodes were similar, his had developed quickly without reasonable explanation and mine had been there for years and had their origin in my recurrent episodes of tonsillitis. I did ask my instructor to check me over, which he gracefully did. He was not worried, and I accepted his assessment. I never again worried about having a dreadful disease, but I often thought of Sven and me during that physical exam class; there but for the grace of God go I.

Around the time of my birthday a couple of weeks ago, I suddenly thought of Sven again: I know he was declared cured from his Hodgkin’s, but what about freak recurrences, late cancer treatment effects or other tricks of the Grim Reaper?

Google gave me the answer: Sven is head internal medicine physician at a medium sized hospital. He has published several scientific articles, and was interviewed recently about differences in heart attack survival between northern and southern Sweden. I even found a couple of pictures. Wouldn’t you know it, he doesn’t have a gray hair on his head or wrinkle in his face; he looks younger than I do.

Bless you, Sven. I wonder if you know how often my thoughts have gone back to those weeks we spent together way back then.

Marc Lachance is the perfect consultant. Ten years my senior, he had more than mastered his specialty by the time I came to the area. He had also established himself as a mentor to Cityside Hospital’s residents and many young physicians who sent him referrals or called him for curbside consultations.

Marc used to live in a rambling farmhouse not far from where I live. But then his elderly father, widowed and suffering from macular degeneration, needed more help in order to stay in his own home. Marc moved to the opposite side of the city to be closer to his father. Marc’s wife was able to look after her father-in-law while Marc commuted to his office downtown. When his father passed away, Marc and Elaine stayed put, even though Marc’s commute was long.

Marc would follow some patients through the decades, but more often he would do a consultation and perhaps a follow-up. Then he would dictate a letter, right in front of the patient, to the referring physician with a detailed care plan. Marc welcomed follow-up calls from his colleagues and he insisted on getting continued updates on patients he had seen in consultation.

Unlike many specialists, he prided himself in his broad knowledge of medicine. I often ran into patients who had seen Marc for a consultation pertaining to his specialty, but had been diagnosed with cancer, hepatitis C and other conditions by Marc.

Whenever I called Marc for curbside advice, he told me exactly what I needed to know in order to move forward with my case. He never put me down if my call was disorganized and less than well prepared. But his own clarity of reasoning and exquisite mind for detail always made me feel I had been to school or a motivational seminar: “This is how a physician should be”, was the thought that lingered after getting off the phone with Marc.

Marc’s partner, whom I had fewer dealings with, retired a year ago. Many of us primary care physicians quietly wondered what was going to happen now.

Yesterday, a patient I shared with Marc brought in a letter she had just received. It was a printed letter that read:

“Dear Patient,

After more than 35 years, I will be closing my practice on December 30, 2013. For many years I have commuted a great distance to my office. As I am soon turning 70, and hoping to avoid retirement, I have made the decision to relocate my practice to Meadowview Hospital in Cornish, which is closer to my home. I will be an employee of Meadowview Hospital without the concerns of managing the business of a medical practice. By making this move, I am hoping to be able to practice medicine well into my eighties if I continue to enjoy the good health I have been blessed with.

I would be happy to continue seeing any patients who wish to transfer to my new location, but understand if most of you will want to find a specialist closer to where you are. Drs Jonathan Bard, Sheldon Mintz and Ravinder Pran all accept new patients in their Cityside Hospital Clinic.

I appreciate the confidence you have placed in me and wish you the best future health. Your primary care doctor has always received copies of my notes and your complete medical records are available for transfer by contacting my office at the above telephone number….”

I slowly handed the letter back to my patient.

Marc, I thought, you are teaching me something every time: How to be an up and coming young doctor, how to conduct yourself when you are in the prime of your career, and how to stay in the most fascinating job in the world as long as you possibly can. I know you love medicine, possibly even more than I do. I also know that you are at least ten years wiser than I am about being a human being, a son, husband and citizen of the world.

Bonne chance, mon ami, and may you never retire.