My its been a long time. Everything's settled into routines and I've felt like I've either had nothing exciting to post or I've been to busy to post.
Two weeks ago, we started dissecting Stanley's face, then we moved on to opening his skull to study the nerves, spinal cord and blood supply (we do the brain this summer). Those dissections were really intense. For whatever reason, the fact that he has eyelashes caught me off guard. Also holding a brain in my hands was a bit bizarre. There's a lot that we don't understand about the brain. It was weird to think that even though we can't access them, I was holding someone's memories, emotions and personality in my hands.
But now for the purpose of my post. I'm excited to report to you all that I'm officially an incoming Co-Director for one of our student run clinics! I'll be taking over responsibilities by January and running the clinic with a team of 6 of my classmates for the next year! So, I decided to go work in the clinic two days ago (Saturday).
On Saturday, I saw a patient who we'll just call M. M came in for a pretty typical appointment- med refills, get lab results, monitoring diabetes etc. After a full patient interview in which M basically said there's been no major changes in her health, we moved on to do a quick physical exam. The plan was since she had no new complaints we just listen to her heart and her lungs and check sensation in her feet (which is part of a routine exam for diabetic patients). So I explain to her what I'm going to do, M says ok so I put my stethoscope in my ears and go to listen to her heart. But without saying anything she takes my hand and puts it just above her left breast- where she has a lump the size of a baseball. I'm a little afraid of what my face probably gave away to her. I've never felt a mass like that before. M then told me that she found the mass 4 months ago but it's grown a lot recently and become painful. She hasn't gone to the place that does free mammograms because she doesn't drive and doesn't know how to get there. M is unemployed and has no health insurance.
While we could process this on a social level and be frustrated that M was put in a position where her disease outcome may be effected simply because she doesn't know how to drive, or because she was afraid to tell someone sooner, but I think the greatest impact on me was in a different way. Its been humbling to realize that she couldn't even find words to tell me she had found a mass. Its moving to realize I was the first person to feel that besides M. I've been in the medical education system for 3 months, and already someone's willing to trust me with something like this. A bit of an eye opener.
The little shiny positive I can give you here is to say that there are people who really care. M brought the paper with mammogram information on it with her to clinic. So one of our fantastic undergrads who run the front office and intake at clinic used the wonders of google maps to find a place with free mammograms less than a mile from M's house. We sent her home with a map and the phone number to call Monday morning and make an appointment (our undergrad even tried to call on M's behalf but the place was closed on weekends).
