Sometimes health education comes outside the textbook or the hours required in medical school. On the plane this week I tripped on an extension class–a movie.
A movie every doctor, daughter, son, mother, father, dog owner, and caregiver should see. I’ve never recommended a movie here before but this one I consider a must-see. It’s R rated, just like health care. And parenting.
Beginners
There is a lesson every few minutes. Here’s 8 I saw:
- Medication is incredible. 70 years ago yesterday patients started to survive from previously incurable illnesses by using penicillin. When you’re giving a father or a mother or a daughter or a partner medicine, put it in a beautiful cup. It may improve the experience. Half way through the film, you can see examples. Providing reminders and offering mediations can sometimes be beautiful.
- When you’re a doctor, remember that your tone and every single word you chose can have lasting power. Not always (thank goodness) but sometimes. Listen to the doctor provide the diagnosis (even in the trailer below) and pause on the power of that particular metaphor. Metaphors and images can serve your patients beautifully. Or haunt them, too. I remembered listening to a voicemail from a doctor in 2004 over and over again. I wanted to hear the good news but all I kept hearing was the truth: the bad news. I listened to that doctor’s voice again and again. Chose your words carefully as best you can when providing news.
- Sorrow and mindlfulness in grief and anticipation of loss can create great meaning. Presence in our reality is a gift for being human. I can’t remember who said this to me recently, but I keep thinking about it: being a caregiver to a suffering or hurting individual may be the most meaningful experiences you have while living. Beginners reminds us we need no medical training to nurture and relieve suffering.
- Pets. Pets offer care and constancy amidst the stormy seas of life. Dogs offer remarkable companionship. We need to remember that and although pets are sometimes allowed into and around hospitals for therapy, the movie is a stark and bright-light example of how exceptionally therapeutic a pet can be. Welcome pets into clinics and homes that share sickness. Find a way, world. We got a few men to the moon, and plenty of women, teachers, and courageous humans into space. We can surely bring comfort to those of us who suffer while enduring health care. Pets can help.
- Maybe the most important lesson for me: the bond between a child (of any age) and a parent is unlike any other. Make no mistake: no matter how painful, complex, or hurtful the relationship you have with your parent or your child, that bond is like nothing else on earth. Episodes throughout the whole movie reminded me of this truth again and again.
- We should have more parties at the hospital with our patients. If I ran a hospital (Is there a CEO reading?) I would hire a worthy party planner and do this justice. Celebrate wellness (even if it only lasts for a few minutes or hours). When someone you know is ill and out of ideas for how you can help, go to the grocery store and buy party hats and streamers. Raise up your voice and celebrate life on earth. Party when those who ache may need it most.
- Life is short and very weird. Make sure the weird part is true. Take risks when you can. Worry less and work hard to make sure that happens. Figure out a way to trust the world, even online. Go meet a new neighbor today, tell them you don’t want to meet them only when the blizzard comes or after the earthquake arrives. Extend your hand and begin a new relationship. The movie will drive this home for you.
- A photo of a hand with daisies can remind us how complex parenthood really is. In the final 1/2 hour of the film, we see a photo of a hand with daisies (no spoiler here) while we’re reminded what we’re trying to provide for our children: “Here’s simple and happy. That’s what I meant to give you.”
Don’t take my word for it– go watch it yourself. Tell me how it will help you with sickness or doctoring or care giving or healing.
M says
You are so right about the weight of doctor’s words. When I recently had a miscarriage, the doctor described my uterus as looking “rat chewed.” Seriously? I was shocked at his poor choice of words and promptly told the attending that no doctor should ever use that term with a patient again. If you want to say it among yourselves that’s fine. But what a horrible image! Every time I relive that experience in my head, that term haunts me.
Annalisa says
Even among colleagues, I’d say some MDs (not all, mind you, I’ve met some excellent ones too) need to be careful of what they’re saying. I’ll never forget sitting in a waiting area outside a doctor’s office after an examination while he worked on an immediate referral to a specialist describe the cyst I had come in with as “grotesque, the size of a golf ball!”. I don’t think he realized I could hear his every word. I understand he was trying to stress the importance of me being seen right away, but right then and there I totally freaked out and started crying. About an hour later, I had driven across town to the specialist, who luckily was a lot more sensitive initially (he reassured me that it didn’t look as bad as he had worried) and through a painful biopsy process that required surgery (the cyst turned out to be benign but burst, which necessitated surgical removal). On the other hand, I never went back to that first physician, even though at the time he had been my primary care doc.
Wendy Sue Swanson, MD says
M,
Ugh. I’m so sorry you lost your baby during your miscarriage and also so sorry the awful imagery persists. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Wendy Sue Swanson, MD says
M,
Let me say that better: I’m so sorry that a clinician chose to describe your body in such terms. Sharing it here will hopefully help all of us improve with wording and take pause before using vivid descriptions that can harm more than they help.
Sarah says
That movie resonated so much with me that I cannot wait until my children are old enough to view it. My father has NH-L and the struggle we have faced for years over understanding the diagnosis, living through the pain, being a realist while also squeezing every drop of living well into our lives, all this and more came through so clearly in the movie. My daughter had an extreme case of thrombocytosis when she was born and her platelet counts were always between 900,000 and 1,200,000 until she turned two. Living through the constant testing, the guessing game of finding the cause (which was never revealed), the fear my family had to hold her because of her size (16 pounds at 2 years old) made her illness about so much more than keeping her alive. We celebrate life better now, but we also learned to face hard moments by finding joy and celebrating every small moment of victory (you should have seen our 20 pound party, it was a blast!). While my daughter is now closing out her fourth her of life and has very few remaining delays or health concerns, the lessons of that experience live on; your lessons from this movie beautifully articulate our life view. Thank you for sharing.
Nanna says
Interesting. I absolutely agree with the attention to words spoken by doctors. I do however wish that my mother’s doc would have told her straight up that she would die from her lung cancer rather than attempting to hide the truth and build our hopes that she would survive the disease by successful treatment. Yes, I agree that we didn’t want to face the truth (all online searches on lung cancer survival rates told us that she wouldn’t live more than 9 months) but there is no way that you’ll ever stop hoping that people will miraculously make it through, if there is just the tiniest of hope. I don’t know how you’d ever tell anybody that they will die but had he somehow found a gentle way to do this, we would have found a way to overcome this terrible outcome by celebrating life. My mom loved to travel, we could have traveled the world for a few months before she got too ill. Just imagine if she would have died with her memory full of lovely travel tales rather than a body full of chemo. It’s been 8 years since she passed away but not a day goes by without me wishing that we would have faced the cancer differently.
Wendy Sue Swanson, MD says
Have been thinking of what you wrote for over a week. I’m so sorry you lost precious time due to an opaque conversation/prognosis. I hope I can learn from this as I imagine anyone who read your comment will.
Angelique Martinez says
I just wanted to tell you that I stumbled upon your blog today when I was looking up whether to give my 8 week old baby Tylenol before he gets his 2 month shots next week (I won’t!). Since then, I’ve been reading a lot of your posts and love them. I’m actually a pediatric hospitalist in South Florida, but a first time mom, and I swear I’ve learned more about newborns in the past 8 weeks than I learned during all of residency. They definitely never taught us about cluster feeding, growth spurts, or the witching hour during my training. Thanks for writing such useful posts for me to reference later. I’ll be back to visit often and will be sure to tell my friends about your blog.
Mel says
Choosing words wisely is such an important part of medical care. I remember having surgery to remove remains after having an unexpected miscarriage. During my time being prepared before and after surgery I overhead several doctors using the term “missed abortion”. This was upsetting to me at the time and I misunderstood the terminology to mean that they were under the impression that I had just had an abortion. I found out later from my obstetrician what the term meant after bringing it up to her.