Responsibilities

Danielle Ofri's post for the Well blog (at the New York Times) is a fine restatement of the privilege of talking to and helping patients. But there's a flip side. A colleague recently told me about a medical student who tried unsuccessfully to convince a patient to undergo a CT scan for the diagnosis of possible pulmonary embolism (blood clot in the lungs). The student was beside herself, anguished really, that the course of care she assumed was the best for the patient turned out not to be what the patient wanted.

The responsibility to provide the patient with what we think is the best recommendation, and then, to realize that their decision might be different: that is something I'm still getting used to every day.