Many people come in to my clinic to shadow me and follow me around seeing my patients with me. Today I have asked 2 college students to share their thoughts. I had sent them both an email that said:
“Thank you for coming to the clinic, you and another college student have enhanced my understanding of many things that practice can offer. I want to task you with something, not sure if you would do it, but worth asking. Can you write to me from your age perspective what you perceived in the clinic about things like death, treatment, cancer and patient care? I would welcome the feedback. Did you enjoy it? What particularly was intimidating? What did not jive? Or things you liked or questions that persisted in your mind………..”
Here is what they had to say:
Mo,
Before shadowing in an oncology clinic, cancer was a statistic, it was something my older relatives had gotten when I was too young to really understand, it was a great research field, it was cells dividing out of control. When I stepped foot in the first patient’s room, cancer was suddenly none of those things. Cancer was right in front of me; it was a person, a family, a lifestyle.
As a person who tries to avoid less-than-happy emotions at all costs, I have always tried to take a passive approach to death. Somewhere lurking inside me were all the thoughts about death that I tried to keep shut away, telling myself I would deal with them when I had to. After the first time I followed Mo around his clinic, I left in complete shock, telling myself I would never be able to do that kind of clinical work. I saw how strongly death affected Mo’s life, and I was not ready to let those thoughts out of their caged place, let alone work with death every day. I told myself that I had a wonderful experience learning from Mo, but there was no way I would be able to do that as my career. When Mo invited me back to shadow another time, I felt compelled to face the unsettled feelings of the first visit.
I am extremely thankful for Mo’s generosity in letting me into the clinic another time because leaving the second visit, I had a completely different outlook. I like that treatment is a puzzle. Not everyone is able to have the same treatment with the same outcomes because of a multitude of factors. Therefore, each day, each patient needs complete concentration in order to figure out what kind of treatment will work in each specific scenario.
It was shocking to me what good spirits many of the patients were in. Cancer is such a scary word, but it almost seemed as if many patients were moved by the solemnity of their condition to fight not only for themselves, but also to help future patients.
It was either a defense mechanism, or truly just caught up in all the information, but I noticed that almost every patient I saw was so focused on the logistics of fighting the cancer that they did not seem focused on death, at least not on the outside. They asked very few emotional questions, the types of questions I had expected in an oncology clinic; most questions were in search of more information about what the cancer was doing and what was the next step they needed to take. Perhaps this is because while they are out living their lives, these thoughts of death creep in, but when they are in the walls of a medical facility, they feel more at ease with real answers instead of the tales their minds come up with.
The mind is very powerful. It can deceive, create, and heal. I am still not exactly sure how exactly the mind plays these roles in a cancer patient, but just in the few hours I was observing, it is obviously that long after the body becomes ill, their mind still continues on, in whatever fashion it can.
-Hailee Reist
Mo,
When I first stepped into your clinic, the thought of death was last on my mind. I guess it didn’t register with me that I was going to see terminally ill cancer patients. When visiting patients I found it rather odd to think that these people had cancer. The mood was always light, amid witty jokes that always made the patients laugh as if they were seeing an old friend. The topic of cancer obviously did come up, but for the most part its discussion was very limited upon your arrival to the room. I found that fairly surprising, given the severity of their ailment. The word “death” has never once been uttered in front of patients, yet you told me behind-the-scenes that some might not live for long. It was remarkable to see such juxtaposition. The light-hearted mood was an especially effective mask that seemed to propagate happiness and hope instead of sadness.
Although we had many discussions, there was a particular conversation between us that stuck out to me. We were talking about the future of medicine and you brought up the upcoming battle between surgery and drug treatment. I never really thought about how we are essentially one pill away from curing cancer and that surgery in the future may not be as relevant as it is currently. That really struck a chord with me. It was very interesting to think that surgery as a profession may decrease in demand in response to cancer drug therapy. That argument has definitely inspired me to think on the long run and ponder about the competitiveness and need of certain medical specialties.
Overall, I very much enjoyed the experience. I was able to observe many diverse cases and I was lucky enough to see some patients twice and see how they have reacted to their treatment. I am glad you exposed me to medical oncology. This has been an educational experience that I sincerely appreciate. Thank you for allowing.
– Gal Wald
Mo About Cancer 