A shocking lack of cultural sensitivity...

Another call day gone by! For these two first months on wards, that's 11 calls down, five to go. (Not that I'm counting!) Today I had the rather sad task of calling back a concerned 20 year old daughter of a patient and telling her, "I'm sorry, but your mother hasn't given us permission to discuss her medical diagnosis or treatment with you." Evidently there's a lot to the story I don't know, but mother and daughter are somewhat estranged.

Then there's my patient with stage IV gastric cancer. All of our treatment is essentially palliative. He's 41 and has children and a loving wife and brother who are at the hospital every day. I really enjoy going to see him because he's a nice guy and never complains, but I've realized lately that I'm a little in denial about the fact that he's dying. Of course, he's not dying in my world. We've got him nearly stabilized, and he'll be ready to leave the hospital soon, hence exiting my world in pretty good shape. But without realizing it, I've been acting of late that my world is his world. Even though he's stabilized, he's still facing death--likely within months--and I wonder what else I can do to be his physician...

On a lighter note, the title of this entry comes from a story related to me by my hispanic resident. She'd seen one of my patients today after I'd finishd rounding, and called me to ask if I'd noticed my patient's red face. No, I hadn't, it looked fine when I saw her. "Half of her face was all red!" my resident explained. "She said she'd been lying on it."

"Oh, I guess that explains it," I replied. My resident seemed surprised. "Oh...so that really happens with white people?" I assured her that yes, if I were to lie on my face, it would turn red too. There was nothing to worry about. And then of course I teased her, and will probably do so again at least once or twice for her concern about my patient's red face!