An MD's feelings: an unusual medical memoir helps patients experience their doctors' vulnerabilities.

An MD's feelings: an unusual medical memoir helps patients experience their doctors' vulnerabilities. Call Me Doctor Shane Neilson Pottersfield Press 142 pages,softcover soft��cov��er?adj.Not bound between hard covers: softcover books; a softcover edition.ISBN ISBNabbr.International Standard Book NumberISBNInternational Standard Book NumberISBNn abbr (= International Standard Book Number) → ISBN m1895900786 It is a relatively recent finding in psychology that wheneverpeople experience an emotion, if the emotion is strong enough toremember at the end of the day, in nine cases out of ten they will havetold it to someone. Often they will have told it to several people.Training in medicine, and working continually with illness and death, isa potent source of strong emotions. Here, in Call Me Doctor, ShaneNeilson, physician and poet, does not just confide orally to people heknows. In his book about some of the emotion-inducing experiences of histraining and early years as a doctor, he shares confidences with a muchwider circle. Call Me Doctor is a collection of short pieces. The first is aboutNeilson being warned by a committee that he is close to being thrown outof Dalhousie Medical School for lateness, inappropriate attire anddisrespect. The collection includes experiences such as these: having asa mentor in a poor part of Halifax an overworked doctor whose patientspraise him exuberantly ex��u��ber��ant?adj.1. Full of unrestrained enthusiasm or joy.2. Lavish; extravagant.3. Extreme in degree, size, or extent.4. , working in a tiny community in the bitter coldof Labrador, jobs in emergency departments, and contrasts between thetechnologies of medicine and empathy for fellow beings who have beenstruck down by illness. Although most of the chapters are self contained, toward the end ofthe book there is a move to a more sequential narrative. The chapterentitled "Being Normal" is about assisting, one day, in anoperating room operating roomn. Abbr. ORA room equipped for performing surgical operations. in the Saint John Regional Hospital The Saint John Regional Hospital is a Canadian hospital in Saint John, New Brunswick.Operated by the Atlantic Health Sciences Corporation, Saint John Regional opened in the 1980s, replacing the Saint John General Hospital. . During an operationNeilson suffers a seizure. There is the possibility that, for someone ofhis age who has never had a seizure before, such an event might mean acancer of the brain. Doctor Neilson becomes patient Neilson, and isappalled at the change. He experiences various diagnostic procedures,including a CAT scan CAT scan(kăt)[computerized axial tomography], X-ray technique that allows relatively safe, painless, and rapid diagnosis in previously inaccessible areas of the body; also called CT scan. , which turns out to be normal. He does not havecancer. Then Neilson recounts in the last chapter but one how he becomes apatient of a different kind: he suffers a severe depression. He liststhe symptoms of depression one by one and writes a paragraph on hisexperience of each, the plummeting of mood, the disturbances of sleep,the loss of interest in things that used to be pleasurable pleas��ur��a��ble?adj.Agreeable; gratifying.pleasur��a��bil , the guilt,the lack of energy, the loss of the ability to concentrate, the slowingof all movements, the thoughts of suicide. He takes time off work and,over a year, his depression resolves. In the book's last chapter,something truly shocking is recounted that, to conform with the bookreviewer's code, I must not reveal. In this book Shane Neilson has confided some of the strongexperiences of emotion in his medical life. We live in the world as weassume it to be, and an emotion occurs when something happens tocontradict con��tra��dict?v. con��tra��dict��ed, con��tra��dict��ing, con��tra��dictsv.tr.1. To assert or express the opposite of (a statement).2. To deny the statement of. See Synonyms at deny. what we assume. Bernard Rime rime:see rhyme. , the researcher who, withcolleagues, discovered the surprisingly high rate of confiding con��fid��ing?adj.Having a tendency to confide; trusting.con��fiding��ly adv. of ouremotions to others, also found that such confiding does nothing todiminish the emotion's intensity. Its function is different.Confiding creates bonds of shared humanity. At the same time it enablesus to understand our world and ourselves with a bit less assumption anda bit more reality. Shane Neilson describes his transformation fromsomeone who had very little understanding of himself as a young medicalstudent to a person who now knows himself better. But this book is not just about Shane Neilson understandinghimself. It is also about us as people who are sometimes patientsunderstanding him and the doctors who treat us. During the last 30years, doctors in Canada have become on average more academically astutebecause it has become more difficult to get into medical school. Also,during this period, not only have the technical resources of medicineincreased but medical training has improved. Partly because of theimproved training, you are now likely to be treated by your doctor withless condescension con��de��scen��sion?n.1. The act of condescending or an instance of it.2. Patronizingly superior behavior or attitude.[Late Latin cond and more respect. We tend to visit doctors when wesuffer bodily adversities, which of course become important to us. Atsuch times we are so vulnerable that we tend to project hugeexpectations onto our doctors. We want them to be not just intelligent,but extraordinarily intelligent. We want them to be not just welleducated but totally knowledgeable and exquisitely skilled. We do notjust want them to treat us as human beings, but for them to give ustheir full, undivided UNDIVIDED. That which is held by the same title by two or more persons, whether their rights are equal, as to value or quantity, or unequal. 2. Tenants in common, joint-tenants, and partners, hold an undivided right in their respective properties, until attention as perhaps our parents might once havedone. We expect them to be superhuman su��per��hu��man?adj.1. Above or beyond the human; preternatural or supernatural.2. Beyond ordinary or normal human ability, power, or experience: "soldiers driven mad by superhuman misery". Shane Neilson's book is unusual in that it gives us someinside understanding of the experiences that have contributed to adoctor's knowledge and attitudes. Neilson lets us know that he andother doctors make mistakes, and suffer anguish because of them. He letsus know that, like us, he and other doctors sometimes feel inadequateand wish it were possible to do more. By confiding to us some of thevivid and often distressing emotions from his own experience, Neilsonbrings the doctor closer to us, as human rather than superhuman. Wemight feel that being able to give over to a doctor the responsibilityfor an infirmity Flaw, defect, or weakness.In a legal sense, the term infirmity is used to mean any imperfection that renders a particular transaction void or incomplete. For example, if a deed drawn up to transfer ownership of land contains an erroneous description of it, an is an important part of the therapeutic relationship.After reading this book, we may wonder whether it is more important toattain a greater realism about our doctors and who they are. Dr. Neilson's book ends with him at the age of 31 working as afamily doctor. He enjoys his work, and he also writes. As well as hismedical work he has published two chapbooks of poetry and a bookconcerning the medical poetry of Alden Nowlen. Dr. Neilson'smedical practice is in Erin, Ontario, which is a small community, so ifyou live there you probably know him. If you do not live there, then asa result of reading this book--a fine addition to Canadianliterature--you may come to know not just Dr. Neilson, but your owndoctor, because you will know something of the range of emotionalchallenges that he or she has confronted. This knowledge may modify yourexpectations somewhat, but the very fact that these challenges have beenmet will have made your doctor better able to care for you. Keith Oatley's second novel was A Natural History (PenguinCanada, 1998), about a 19th-century doctor trying to discover the causeof cholera cholera(kŏl`ərə)or Asiatic cholera,acute infectious disease caused by strains of the bacterium Vibrio cholerae that have been infected by bacteriophages. , the key that unlocked the scientific understanding ofinfectious disease Infectious diseaseA pathological condition spread among biological species. Infectious diseases, although varied in their effects, are always associated with viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, multicellular parasites and aberrant proteins known as prions. .