As I rushed to the closed room at the other end of the corridor, my heart was thumping. I was holding a tiny, vulnerable creature in my hand, so I had to run fast – but not too fast, making sure the precious life in my hand was fine all the way. The intermittent cries reassured me that it was going to be alright.
Another colleague ran alongside me, opening doors. Eventually, we reached the neonatal care room. I handed over the fragile infant to the nurse so they could check his weight and hurriedly prepared the tubes and life support machines.
I wonder what a newborn brain senses at that time – out prematurely at six months, weighing a little over 800 grams – opening his eyes not to a loving mother’s face full of tears but to a white cold room, surrounded by people with serious faces. For us, this is routine – the faster we get it done, the better.
The routine is this: first, the child is pricked for intravenous connection; then a tube is placed down the throat for ventilation; and lastly a tube is inserted through the nose for the stomach. It’s important for the child’s survival, and when it’s a question of survival, no emotions should be involved. That’s what we’re taught.
This is the first time I’ve thought about that child as something with feelings. I realise how numb we are to the subtle emotions. That child must feel so vulnerable, with an artificial warmer instead of the mother’s tenderness for warmth, and cold, clean hands instead of the father’s delicate touch. I sometimes wonder if this is how it was when I first started my medical career.
There are many firsts in life that we never forget, but medicine has different firsts: the first newborn you delivered; the family’s tears of joy as you handed their child to them; the first death you declared; the first patient you revived. Each moment creates a memory and an emotion, buried deep within our hearts. With time, this collection of emotions builds experience.
But even at a later stage in our career, the memories continue to form and the emotions continue to flow. We are still touched when we see the parent crying for their child or the child for their parent. These emotions make us compassionate. As a result, we treat people as humans, not just as patients.
Every once in a while, you come across a child on the ward who was running around, giggling and healthy before this infection or that disease struck. Now, you see the tubes in their body, making them breathe, maintaining their blood pressure – and despite all this, none of your efforts seem to be working..
While you remain level-headed at work, these emotions play with your head when you’re at home with family, having dinner, watching television or with friends. You read about treatment options when you’re off duty and call your on-duty colleague to ask how patients are doing. We’re only human – we care, we cry, we feel happiness – but at work, we carry on concealing our true emotions.
It has been this way in medicine ever since I started. We can feel but not express, we allow the situation to affect our personal lives but not our professional ones. With no guidance as to how we should deal with them, we gradually become numb to our emotions.
How I wish we could express our feelings and thoughts without the patient or the relatives or our seniors considering it a sign of weakness. If we were allowed to, it just might prove to be a better experience for the patient.
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