I made a woman cry today. It wasn’t on purpose. Oh, who am I kidding, it was sorta on purpose. Very on purpose.
She was the mother of one of my patients, first-time parent and all. But by the end of the visit, she thanked me. I want to say that it was genuine. But I had to say what I thought she needed to hear. And I think she heard me.
Here I am, telling people how to raise their children when I can’t even get my dog to stop playing with her poop.
I realized as she left that most people don’t really know what a good doctor means. I watched House a couple of times. The twist of the show, if you’ve never seen it by some miracle of God, is that Dr. House is a phenomenal doctor in terms of his medical expertise (“The best diagnostician we’ve got!”) with horrible bedside manners. Does that make him a bad doctor? Or a good one? I bet he made more then a few women cry. I’ve only seen two episodes.
I suppose it’s a lot like any other relationship. Sometimes, you’ve got to be nice. Other times, they push a little, and I push a lot. Then there are days that you will do anything to get them out of the office.
I saw another woman today that told me she was glad I was her child’s doctor. It took me by surprise–I didn’t really remember her before, and I honestly didn’t think that our current encounter had been very pleasant. It was a rough day, and the kid did vomit on me.
Good. Bad. I’m only doing my job. But how many people get thanked for doing their job? And how many go home at night and cry about it? It is hard for me to wake in the morning. Sometimes, it’s harder to leave.
By the way, there’s no such thing as a diagnostician.
And I’d make a horrible patient.
