I think this title line is a set up for disappointment. I mean seriously, what was I thinking stealing the tag line from one of the best journalistic minds (at least in my opinion) of our time. I blame it on the fever dreams. But anyway, no time to dwell on these types of thoughts, this is bat country..

Right, so I’ve been laid up in bed since Wednesday afternoon, with a brief respite to go to psych and the patient simulator on Thursday. And all of those hours on the couch gave me plenty of time to think, and also plenty of time to watch hockey…. But thinking about stuff is one of my favorite pastimes, so having all that time really worked out well. And seeing as how I was sick, I thought it might be appropriate to think about how we fit into the health care system. My personal feelings on where I fit in fluctuate between privileged member and scamming mongrel. I mean seriously, I’ve never felt more angst about going to the doctor than I have since starting at Dal. And for a number of different reasons. So I just wanted to put out a few thoughts about the Med student and the health care system to see if I just have some serious problems, or if there are others out there that feel the same.

The first is the pressure to either not be sick, or if you are sick, pretend you aren’t until you wake up one Friday morning and start getting ready for school, and then realize that you are unable to make the twenty step trip from your bed to the shower without stumbling into the wall once and almost passing out. They say that daycares are one of the worst places for disease spread, and while one would assume that the personal hygene habits of medical students would be somewhat better ( I have only heard of one med student eating boogers so far) I’ll bet that med school comes a close second. Think about the pressure we have to make all of our sessions. With the number of mandatory sessions in our schedule, and also with the limited time we have in the clinical methods sections, it’s easier to put your learning ahead of your health and the health of your classmates. Add that to the extra work necessary to make up for missed time, and giving the flu to 93 others doesn’t seem like such a terrible thing in comparison to missing more than one day.

The second problem is in some ways the exact opposite. Instead of denying that you’re sick when you actually are, you interpret every cough or ache as some rare form of leukemia that you just read about. A article I read about this in the CMAJ recently (see, staying on the couch for three days also lets you catch up on your reading, and I had already finished the Readers Digest…) calls this phenomenon medstudentitis. I have actually experienced this first hand a few months ago. While doing some reading about cholestasis for GI, I came across pruritis of the palms of the hands and soles of the feet as a symptom. I had actually had a pretty severe case of this a few years back in response to cold water, which just went away on its own. While wondering if I needed to have my gall-bladder removed, my hands suddenly broke out in an itchy red rash! Psycho-somatic pruritis! After briefly marveling at the power of my mind, I then spent the next two hours trying to make a pencil roll across my desk using only my super powered brain. It didn’t work. But this got me to thinking, that knowing of this strange ability to create symptoms just by thinking of them (just imagine if that worked for other stuff!) I now hesitate to see a doctor about anything. As an example, last night, my fourth night of being quite ill, I coughed so hard and long that I pulled a muscle in my back, and was actually retching (sorry for the visual). And I thought, I should go to the hospital if this keeps up. But then I thought, nooooo way….. I’m not going in to have a clerk or resident laugh at me for coming to emergency for a case of the cold. And there’s the problem, I, and boy do I hope some of you too, am so paranoid that any illness I might have is just a creation of my over active imagination that I am hesitant to seek treatment. I think I am beginning to understand why they say you never see a doctor in an office that isn’t his own. And this of course is something that has to be corrected.

The final issue I came across is one that is to me the most interesting. This is the issue of jumping the cue. This involves a little something that is referred to as the “Med card”. Apparently membership has its benefits. According to a certain Euphoria skit, it can apparently help average (hey, it’s my blog ok) looking guys get beautiful girlfriends. Well, I haven’t quite figured out how to use this feature, maybe you have to sign up for it or something, but I have figured out how to use its skip the line to see a doctor option. Earlier this year, I had an appointment to see an unspecified for this blog medical specialist. The appointment was for 8:30 on a Wednesday morning. A Wednesday morning that it turned out we had a mandatory session scheduled for 8:35. So about two weeks ahead of the appointment, I called to see if it would be possible to reschedule. I asked if it would be possible to come in earlier in the morning, and was told that the doctor started at 8 and was fully booked until my appt. So I asked if I could reschedule for another day, and was told that they were currently booking into the next year! So I tried to explain my situation to see if anything could be done. I told the lady that I was a medical student and had a mandatory session starting at 8:35, but I needed the appointment….. and all of a sudden, she just said, “well why don’t you come in at 7:30? I’m sure the doctor will come in early.” And amazingly, he did! Eureka!! I was drunk with power. One trip to Blockbuster where the med card did not erase my late charges brought me back to earth. But anyway, you get the idea. It appears that even at this tadpole stage of medical training, we get to enjoy the privileges I thought were reserved for full colleagues. And I know of numerous other first year students who have had similar experiences. Now I’ll reserve the discussion on whether doctors should be allowed to skip the line for someone else to blog about. But as one doctor put it to me recently, “do you think the guy with a brother who’s a plumber waits a month to get his toilet fixed?”

Wow, this is getting long. So I will rap it up. If you have gotten this far, congratulations, you are obviously on top of your studies and have lots of free time! Please feel free to comment on, add to, subtract from, extrapolate on, etc. and of these points as you see fit. As for me, I’m starting to feel much better already!