"How many lives have you saved today?" someone asked.
My friend K was completely taken aback with this question.
Well, if you take it in the strict literal sense, there should hardly be any. As I often tell our younger colleagues, of all patients that we encounter, 60% will get better irrespective to what we do (or what we not do), 10% will get worse whatever we do, and 29.9% will improve with treatment that any doctor could offer; in other words, they do not have to see you.
It is therefore fortunate to see every year one that 0.1% type of case whose recovery is because of your exceptional skill - if there is any.
And even for that 29.9% type of case, you do not save their lives. At most you hasten the recovery (say, from an acute episode of some chronic disease) or alleviate the symptoms.
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On a second thought, however, I become less pessimistic.
Let me tell you how we save (or persuade ourselves to be saving) lives tomorrow.
There's one class symptom that we can't seem to alleviate very well at all- psychosomatic symptoms.
ReplyDeleteI still remember you telling me those guesstimates before, and I find them more true than ever. Except I don't think they're pessimistic, just realistic!!