Oh, you're a medical student?

Now that I'm well into medical school... well, who am I kidding, this happened back in pre-med too... family or friends or even strangers are willing to tell me the most gruesome details of their personal medical lives.

It's partly a testament to the amount of respect doctors have. They know that I should be able to understand that part of their lives a bit differently than some of their other friends. They know that I won't go broadcasting their story to the rest of the family.

It's also partly a testament to apathy. Why book an appointment when Vitum is here and I can just ask him? I'm not mocking them... just saying, there are plenty of things I've not bothered to see a doctor about that maybe I should have (like how it always burns when I use the toilet).

They way I respond to these varies on the situation. Sometimes it's about old aunt Helga who is having trouble getting up off the couch these days, and I smile and nod. Sometimes it's about Jimmy's dad who now has a tumour, and I ask if they have biopsied it yet and how the treatment is coming along. Sometimes its about the fungating, smelly growth on their foot, which they insist on showing me, wafting its visible fumes vigorously towards me ("Does that smell like anything bad?") - for those people, I try to encourage them to see a doctor and explain I haven't had a lecture on that yet so please take it away from my face...politely.

I don't usually provide an opinion as we've been warned to not provide advice to people outside the office setting (or at all, really, right now, since we're still students) - we've been told enough horror stories of lawsuits from such situations - so I usually simply tell them that's something they should discuss with a doctor. I don't want to be telling somebody that a mole is nothing of concern and have it turn out to grow into a massive tumour.

However, a couple times I've grown quite concerned after I asked a few questions and end up being a bit more insistent that they go see their doctor. In fact, for a couple of my friends, I asked them to go the hospital right away. One of those people ended up needing surgery.

I appreciate being the person that people feel they can approach with questions, and being able to apply my interest in science to the answers. That's undoubtedly one of the many things that attracted me to medicine as a career. We'll see if I can put up with it happening more than once or twice every few weeks.

A story on this topic: Blinded by the Silver Lining