Stop for a Story

I love stories, always have. When I was young my parents would reward me with books and subsequently take them away as punishment. I think this love of story is part of my draw to medicine; my career will be centered around interactions with people. I will have to learn almost all the pertinent information needed to diagnose and treat a presenting condition, directly from the stories told by people I encounter in my exam rooms.

I have recently moved across the country, in order to attend medical school, and I now find myself in a small suburb of Chicago. In my little suburb, there are always events happening. Festivals, concerts, deals on dinner to allow you to try all the restaurants—it’s a fun place.

However, my suburb also moves at a much slower pace of life than I am used to—and I have been learning about slowing down to take it all in. So, today I decided to take my reading homework outside in the community. I eventually ventured toward the public library’s lawn, which I realized was being set up for a concert. I found my bench: in the sun, close to some people but further from the music, and slowly a crowd started to form.

Enter to the scene: Bob.

Now I am not sure how, but Bob was able to figure out by just walking by me and saying hello, that I was a medical student. My bench had remained unoccupied until this point, despite the filling crowd. No less than a minute later, however, Bob sits right next to me—separate only by the water bottle I had set down when I first arrived. I don’t think too much of it, but when I glance from my reading, I know I’m in for a story.

From my initial assessment of Bob, I notice that he is well dressed, older (60s at least), and I quickly learn he knows almost every person in the park by name. Over the next 15-20 minutes, Bob’s story is told to me in small, repetitive, snippets. I assess the repetition is most likely due to the short-term memory loss he retains as one of the only, obvious symptoms secondary to his “massive cerebral vascular accident” (stroke) which brought him to Loyola School of Medicine Emergency Department as a “code blue” (unresponsive patient), 40 years ago.

As I listen to Bob, I gain significant insight into my medical school and the people who work there from a perspective that could only come from a patient. He and his neurosurgeon who was (at the time of his emergency craniotomy) chief of neurosurgery at Loyola, have since become great friends, family even.

Bob tells me that he calls this physician, who no longer is in practice, often—just to update him about his life. He reverently refers to the physician because he feels he owes him his life. He tells me about each of the neurosurgeon’s children, and he also notes all the medical people within his own nieces and nephews. And while I am listening to these snippets of story, he intermittently stops and interjects to say hi, by name, to each of the passersby.

Can you imagine, that the book I was reading for my medical school doctoring class (Patient Centered Medicine) was discussing the inherent necessity for empathy in the medical practice? That I was reading about was discussing specifically, the need for physicians who listen and discover what kind of person has the disease, not just what kind of disease the person has? And that as I read said book, into my world walked a living, breathing example of how this could be lived out? I also was able to see how well the patient could fair after a significant operation (he showed me his scar) directly due to how he was and continues to be cared for, by his physician.

Eventually, one of Bob’s many friends joined us on the bench, and I was able to finish my reading before heading home. But I think the importance of listening to a patient and being with them through the journey of healing will always be somehow connected to Bob. I had previously observed this from the physician side during my countless hours as a scribe, but understanding the impact an invested physician had on a random patient was unique.

Overall, it makes me excited to become a practicing physician—but for now I am grateful that my education will be gained at an organization who produces physicians worthy of telling stories about to strangers in the park.