Another new blogger – as a junior doctor with an interest in
MS, my time with TeamG is predominantly spent researching new treatments and
teaching medical students. This post is about the latter…
How many of you are regularly accosted by medical students
when in clinics or hospital? Or have had a doctor like me rush round
apologetically but no doubt somewhat intrusively asking “I understand you have MS – would you mind if some students came and
examined you?”
I often feel guilty
when doing this as I am sure that for many of you it is not top of your wish list,
hence I’m writing this to thank those of you that help out, encourage those of
you who would rather not to speak up, and give you some insight from the
students perspective. Any comments on your experiences would be much
appreciated and will help to try and improve the situation for everyone.
At Bart’s, students only get two weeks out of a 5 year
course studying neurology and neurosurgery – no time at all! Much of this is
spent in lectures, hence it is not unreasonable to think that these
doctors-to-be might only meet a couple of patients with MS during their whole
course. Furthermore, it is well known that neurology is generally seen as a
rather obscure and complicated subject that students are often inclined to shy
away from.
Besides the obvious importance of increasing awareness of
the condition, people with MS are often able to teach students much more than
many other patients that they come across – as a group, my experience of MSers
is that they are often younger and better informed about their condition than
your average patient, and hence better able to impart this knowledge onto the
students.
In addition to this, however, any chronic condition such as
MS that involves regular clinic visits or trips to a teaching hospital can
understandably lead rather quickly to “student fatigue” – the sight of yet
another nervous group of 20-somethings, proudly sporting their new stethoscopes
and eager to attack you with a tendon hammer may no doubt be a rather
unpleasant prospect… (An under-reported risk factor of tysabri – when hooked
up to a drip once a month you have a limited ability to escape the gaggle...)
When
you next find yourself in such a position, please therefore remember the
following:
- Number 1 for a reason – please tell us to go
away if you don’t want to see students! No excuse needed, and it certainly will
not affect your treatment.
- In addition to the above, please also say if you
would rather not be put through a full examination – I’m sure this can be
tiresome (especially if it’s not for the first time that day…). A lot of the
time if you are just happy to let the students ask you a few questions about
your condition they will learn more than they would have done with a tendon
hammer.
- Please do tell the student (and the teaching
doctor) afterwards where they could improve – you will often be much more
experienced than the students! This is especially important if you found
anything uncomfortable.
- If you are kindly letting students talk to or examine
you, try not to tell them that you have MS – it is really useful to make them
try and work it out for themselves based upon what you tell them (and as a
bonus you get to watch them squirm when they can’t work it out)
- Agreeing to be examined only on the condition
that the students/doctor go and make you a cup of tea immediately afterwards is
entirely acceptable – by that stage you probably deserve it.
It is just over 4 years since I first met an person with MS as a
student. I can still remember it very clearly, and I’m sure their willingness
to be interrupted by the likes of me had a significant contribution as to why I
am pursuing a career in neurology now.
A simple conclusion is therefore that we
are very grateful to those of you who are able to help contribute to teaching
medical students, and that this really does have a big impact upon them.
At no
point, however, should you be made to do anything that you don’t want to –
whenever you don’t feel like it, please do tell us to go away!