Clinical Pearl Profile picture
Sep 20, 2020 6 tweets 1 min read Read on X
I became a doctor largely because I wanted to understand my body and what was happening to it, and because I wanted to be able to explain the physiology behind people's suffering better than my doctors did to me.
I am having a patient experience. I know I'm being vague on the internet right now, & I'm sorry, but my body is misbehaving, and all the training, education, and support I have does not solve my problem, or even name my problem. I do not know what is going on, and I can't fix it.
I am frustrated. I am tired. And I know the world is on fire and everything is terrible, and here I am whining about something that is very small in the grand scheme of things, but I just...I don't want to have to deal with this.
And nobody can fix it, or at least not yet.
I don't really know why I'm tweeting about this, but I guess: healthcare workers, remember you are not invincible, remember to take your patients seriously, and try to help them understand. It sucks to be on the other side.
Also, please please please be especially kind and mindful when a workup doesn't show what you expect it to. Nobody wants to hear how good their test results look and be reminded how normal they are when they feel anything but.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Clinical Pearl

Clinical Pearl Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @ClinicalPearl

Jan 10, 2022
Learner: The patient rates her pain an 8/10, but I think it's really more a 4/10.

Me: How do you know?

Learner: Well, she's happy and interactive.

Me:
Pain is an intrinsically subjective experience and we cannot necessarily infer things about people's pain level based on their apparent behaviors, especially when we are meeting the patient for the first time and have no idea what their baseline looks like!
Now, I think I've said before on here that I do not love numerical pain scales because I don't find them particularly clinically useful, but if you like a scale, I personally prefer functional impact scales. These are widely available and many are well validated.
Read 6 tweets
Sep 19, 2021
I am going to watch Twilight.

I have never seen Twilight.

Pray for my soul.
What is happening

Like, what is happening
Oh, the doctor is a vampire, I guess

I would really like to chat with whoever did his makeup, please
Read 53 tweets
Sep 19, 2021
All right, I'm gonna level with you. This is going to be unpopular (especially with med school faculty/admin), but please know I'm speaking from experience here. Maybe this isn't universal, but here we go.
Med students heading into #Match2022 (or any match in subsequent years), please know that any and all advice from your med school administration is specifically designed to make sure *your school* is successful. They want you to match, period.
Your school does not need to worry about whether you are happy when/where/in what you match, as long as you match. You are a metric. You *not* matching is an unacceptable outcome not because it would be personally devastating to you, but because then they have to explain it.
Read 24 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(