I was chatting with an old from I knew from secondary school days. We were catching up about each other, talked about the good old secondary school days.
Then she reminded me about the day we went to the Hospital Tengku Ampuan Rahimah (HTAR), otherwise known as Klang GH. We were there together for a hospital attachment, which was part of process of applying for the JPA scholarship in 2006.
She told me this, “We met an old aunty in one of the wards. You talked to her politely, ask questions about her condition and listened attentively. She had an AV fistula, which she showed you. You touched it lightly. She was feeling a little cold that time due to the air conditioner, so you covered her with a blanket. I could see that from then, you are going to make a good doctor.”
I was surprised that she remembered that event vividly, despite it happening 4 years ago. The only part I really remembered was when the patient told me to feel the turbulence in the AV fistula. I struggled to remember if I did the others.
This made me wonder, where has that part of me gone to?
If I am not able to do all those, giving sufficient attention to the patients despite being only a medical student, what more when I become a doctor in a future. I really need reminders like this, to wake me up, to make me realize that we need to treat patients as a whole and not as a disease.
That part of you has never left you. It would rather say that it had became your subconscious habit. Something that you don’t have to constantly remind yourself to do so.
That’s why you can’t recall yourself doing so.