Touching

Often, when I see patients and their families, I like to let them tell their stories that, for one reason or another, might help us see the big picture. And actually, many of those stories that doctors might have considered irrelevant may turn out, the more we listen, to be important.

But listening to their stories - important though it is - is not the only purpose. The benefits of story telling go well beyond that. The idea of narration is to let both parties go through the same journey. Trying to explain the anatomy jargon and medical facts, on the other hand, would sound like the voice of a brain in formaldehyde, talking to an angry family from a jar.

Listening to stories (instead of medical lecture) can be remarkable for many reasons, one of which is shown by my patient's mother yesterday. My patient didn't tell the story. She'd been struggling to find some way to let us know how she felt, but could not say a single word with tube sticking from her throat. She was dying. The story came from her mother. What did she say? The sort of voice that will sooner or later make you want to pull your hair out. It was like being a volcano, plugged and stoppered and unable to get rid of the boiling stuff inside. Nearly everything she said contradicts whatever professional knowledge we have.

I let her continue and didn't argue. Then with a little luck I heard her outrageous hatred towards one doctor, and then how she thought her daughter might have survived if she was seen instead by another good doctor. At once I realised she was referring the good doctor to my mentor. On this subject, I imagine, both of us will agree. No doubt, my mentor is a caring doctor with good knowledge. It's always gratifying to hear something positive out of a sad conversation. It would seem absurd to dismiss her praise for my mentor and move to another topic. We identified. We agreed. We talked about someone who had been taking care of her daughter for 20 years. I promised to convey her gratitude to my mentor, and asked her for more story of my mentor.

"Well, look," she said. "Many doctors don't bother to answer my daughter when she's sick with lupus. Many doctors don't even come close to see my daughter last month when she developed nasty skin problem. But he was not afraid of that. He examined my daughter's skin every morning, not even wearing gloves."

She's right. That is the way of doctoring. A touching way to heal.