The Patient Versus The Physician

William Carlos Williams’ passion and dedication of medicine can be seen through his literary contributions of short stories and poems. The Doctor Stories use interior monologue in a stream-of-consciousness as a tool to reflect each narrator’s experience and gives insight into the character and his appraisal of each of the situations encountered. It is through this stream-of-consciousness that we come to realize the observational nature of this doctor’s actions and thoughts.

“nothing was worse for a nervous patient than to give way to such fancies”. Under her

Mathilda’s parents display conflicting emotions about the doctor’s behavior but they want their daughter to live, so they are facing an internal conflict. Much like an entitled member of the nobility in the 1800s, the doctor consistently shows disdain for the parents’ lack of respect for his superior knowledge and strength and for them not allowing him to immediately probe her mouth. At the beginning, he says, “they weren’t telling me more than they had to, it was up to me to tell them” (1214), then he increases his scorn when the mother tells Mathilda the exam won’t hurt and the doctor “ground my teeth in disgust” (1215). As he continues his attempts to dominate Mathilda, he continues using disparaging words and describes the parents as “contemptible to me” (1215) because “I had already fallen in love with the savage brat” (1215). Much like a poor family from a previous century who sell their child in order to survive, Mathilda’s parents aid the brutal doctor in restraining their daughter.

To make a short story even shorter, this story is about a doctor who was called by a sick child’s parents to come diagnose the young girl. Throughout the story the little girl refuses to let the doctor come anywhere close to examining her. No matter how much the parents try to calm the child down, they seem to make the situation even worse.

As Beneatha describes the profound moment when she decided to become a doctor, her admirable, although childlike, determination and refusal to set limits on her future is illustrated. Beneatha says while discussing her dream, “...that was what one person could do for another, fix him up-sew up the problem, make him alright again. That was the most marvelous thing in the world...I wanted to do that. I always thought it was the one concrete thing in the world that a human being could do. Fix up the sick, you know - and make them whole again. This was truly being God…” (131). As Beneatha describes her dream with conviction, it is apparent how the decision to pursue her dream was created with faith in the practice, unconcerned with the efforts

The most important reason for the justification of the doctor’s use of force is that he has the permission and cooperation of the girl’s parents. It is possible that the girl simply didn’t understand that the doctor was trying to help her. And at that young of an age a child’s parents have authority over matters like this. The mother has her doubts

It was a chilly day but began just as any other day of shadowing a pediatrician. We rushed between patients in order to keep on schedule but instead of dismissing patients early, thorough evaluation remained present. This next patient, however, was one apart from the ordinary. A father had brought his child in to see the doctor but it was the end of the routine checkup which was disjoint with the mundane patient. It was a series of troubles his wife possessed over the past weeks and contemplation of suicide followed by a narrative of the futile efforts of every single doctor she had seen. The end of his child’s evaluation ended in the father’s insipid begging to see his wife despite the fact he was just a pediatrician and had no jurisdiction among adults. Succumbing to the father in concern for her safety, the doctor told him to bring her in during his lunch hour.

When he first visited the surgical ward, it was described as brilliant, it even seemed to glitter. However, that too good to be true varnish was soon tainted. Konner uses juxtaposition in order to emphasize how the narrator felt indignant. When the middle-aged woman was getting a central line put in, all Konner could focus on was how the woman moaned “mama, mama”. All the while, the medical student had a “cheery lilting tone with a fresh expression on her face”. The woman was described as frail, small, and a tangle of orange her- making her seem all the more desperate and pained. Her repeated moans for “mama” were a cry for help… a cry that nobody responded to. When the central line was put in, the narrator was aggravated by the resident’s reaction- they cheered about the fact that they succeeded in completing the procedure, but failed to listen to the patient’s cries (“her resistance was treated as an annoyance and her cries were ignored”). When the residents left, the narrator stroked the patient’s hair and told her that everything was going to be alright. The woman didn’t respond to the narrator’s touch. He thought that his actions might have been useless, but it didn’t necessarily mean that he shouldn’t have been making them. This behavior represents the good nature of the narrator’s soul- despite the fact that everyone around him failed to show compassion for the woman, he did. The narrator described the second lesson as realizing that “humane acts not directly affecting ‘care’… acts and gestures that are other than completely instrumental. That entire last paragraph entices me. The term “care” is far removed from what it once meant. It now refers to the medicinal approach to illness. The human nature of hospital care is being removed as healthcare has shifted to serving more people in shorter amounts of time. Today, that problem is rarely addressed. It’s as if

Dr. Gawande, a surgeon, a laboratory scientist, a public hearth researcher, a writer, and a son of two doctors, is unconfident. Particularly, he doesn’t have the self-confidence. For example, in the central line of the obese patient with over 300 pounds in weigh, Dr Gawande was uncertain about his ability to do the line when he could not find the patient’s clavicle. He gave the supervisor, S, the chief resident, a “Do you want to take over” look (Gawande 21). As soon as he got the keep-going signal from the supervisor, he continued the line without questioning and gained success. Another evidence which determines that Dr. Gawande lacks self-confidence is the case of a woman who was injured by a two-and-half foot long wooden chair accidently

He first tries to be accommodating by asking the girl for her name in order to get her to cooperate in opening her mouth, but she does not budge. The doctor assures Mathilda that he has nothing in his hands and that she should open up. “Such a nice man, put in the mother. Look how kind he is to you. Come on, do what he tells you to. He won’t hurt you.” The mother’s helpfulness in assuring the girl that the doctor is trying to help enrages the doctor; as he puts it, “At that I ground my teeth in disgust.” The doctor then shows frustration, “If only they wouldn’t sue use the word ‘Hurt’ I might be able to get somewhere.” (par. 16) Despite this he continues to get his diagnosis. As the doctor reaches again for the girl, she swipes his glasses and the parents light up in embarrassment. They apologize and chastise the girl and assures assure her that he is a nice man. The doctor lashes out to the parents, “For heaven’s sake, I broke in. Don’t call me a nice man to her.” (par. 19) He states to the parents that he is strictly there to check her throat to see if she has diphtheria and that she could die from it. It is apparent at this point that the doctor may not care what the parents and child think of him, just as long as he checks the girls (should it be girl's? I didn't correct you, because I'm not actually sure which is right)

ADHD, defiance disorder, pregnancy, these are just few of the things medicalized in the West (Davies 1995). With the rising prestige of Doctors in the 19th century, came a widening of the gap of knowledge between Doctors and the general population (Davies 1995). Doctors have kept a sort of lock on medical knowledge, enabling them to medicalize all sorts of “issues” aided by the idea of the medical mystique. But with the emergence of medicalization and cures that are being searched for by Doctors, a new problem has arisen. This fixation on curing illnesses has led to Doctors viewing patients as experiments and not as human beings, this is seen especially in technologically advanced societies as exemplified in the movie Wit. In addition to this new problem, there are clear establishments of hierarchy between medical professionals such as Doctors and nurses as well as the emotional detachments with the patients which can lead to patients feeling left out and alone.

For the whole time that I have taught Mahalia, she has always proved herself to be a highly motivated student. Likewise, she has always been greatly interested in medical science. For this reason, I encouraged her to keep up with her studies in science. Since she has such an interest in medicine, Mahalia decided that she wants to become a doctor. Therefore, she has taken on the hard task of trying to go to medical school to become a doctor.

External conflicts within the doctor’s mental state change a lot as the story develops. In the beginning, the doctor acts as other doctors often do to take trial shot for the throat check. He professionally explains to the family why their daughter has a high fever and patiently coaxes the girl to open the mouth. As the girl refuses to open her mouth and what her parents act, the doctor gets more furious and uses force to restrain her. For example, he starts to order her father to “Put her in front of you on your lap, and hold both her wrists”, and uses a heavy silver spoon back of her teeth even though “the child's mouth was already bleeding.

Imagine a small, dull colored room where the windows are closed off and inside lies a single medical bed with pointy silver objects surrounding it. The coldness of the room gives you chills but not because of the temperature. Even more chilling are the internal struggles a woman will have to fight through. Does she want to do this? No, she just feels like it is her only choice. She reluctantly enters the room where she will experience a moment that she will never be able to erase from her mind. For the rest of her life, she will be left wondering if she made the right choice. The doctor disrupts her internal questioning with a casual greeting. He does not smile when he introduces himself and she is glad about this because how twisted it would be to show any sign of joy in a place such as this. She

The description of symptoms and treatments of all the different diseases fascinated her, but she also learned what the doctor’s accusations had meant.