The other day, a friend told me that when I went to the doctor, I often had the feeling that the important thing was the doctor, when the really important thing should be the patient.
In this regard I recently read a wonderful short story by Galeano that I wanted to share with you:
“A man from the town of Negua, on the coast of Colombia, was able to ascend to the high sky. On his return he explained that he had contemplated human life from above. world is this, he revealed, a lot of people, a sea of fireworks, each person shines with his own light among all the others, no two fires are alike, there are big fires and small fires and fires of all colors. there are people of serene fire, who do not even know the wind, and people of mad fire who fill the air with sparks, some fires, stupid fires, do not light or burn, but others burn life with so much passion that cannot be looked at without blinking, and whoever approaches is ignited. “
We should all try to be the kind of final ‘fueguito’, the one who ‘lights up’ what he is approaching. But especially doctors. We have this opportunity and this responsibility with our patients.
The placebo effect of empathy
When a patient leaves a consultation, there can be 3 types of possible reactions:
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Let him say, “Woe is me, I will not return.”
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Let him say, “All right, they’re professionals.”
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Let him come out and say, “What a wonder! How well I have been treated!
The latter is what we doctors should try to achieve: establish one emotional nexus with patients through our treatment and how we made them feel in our consultation. Patients do not remember why they came to us, but they will remember how they felt in our consultation.
Also, if that empathy is reached, we get it two very clear benefits about the patient: the known placebo effectsThat is, the patient is directly improved by a psychosomatic effect, and especially the safety that the patient will also be involved in the therapeutic compliance or recommendations that the doctor has guided, ie greater ‘adherence’ to the treatment .
People who engage in medicine must be the kind of ‘fueguito’ that ‘lights up’ others, that makes them better. In the case of dermatologists, we help our patients through the skin. And we must be, as the story goes, one serene fire, Which is not sensitive to wind (fashions, unrealistic expectations, money, pharmaceuticals, temporary trends, etc.). Therefore, in medicine it is not a matter of constantly doing extraordinary things, but of doing the normal day-to-day tasks in an extraordinary way.
Because doctors cure sometimes, but we have always relieve.