I watched this episode upon returning home, basically anticipating to finish the third season pretty soon. I chose to blog about this certain episode because it especially struck me. In this episode, a woman with aboulia (inability to decide) was misdiagnosed to have either an autoimmune disease or cancer - either disease involved the body attacking itself, thus requiring that the immune system be suppressed, first through steroids and then through whole body chemotherapy. Unfortunately, the treatments caused her to become septic, indicating that it wasn't autoimmune nor was it cancer. It was simply an infection, which was later discovered to be due to her bra hook that pierced through the skin and allowed the entry of bacteria. What's worse is that the bacteria was merely Staphylococcus aureus, a relatively manageable and curable disease given that antibiotics can effectively work with the body's immune system. In this case, though, the patient's immune system has been severed, and absolutely nothing can be done to reverse it.
My dream of one day becoming a doctor always involved saving patient's lives, receiving gratitude from their families, helping others, all the beautiful benefits of being in the medical field. Let's face it, one of the common denominators of this world is that we are all susceptible to disease. Every one has a health status, and only the privileged medical professionals are able to address these concerns. Therefore the magnitude of responsibility on the shoulders of these people are beyond cognition.
Medical professionals have so much in their hands that we often forget that they are human as well. But I don't blame anyone for this. After all, if the difference between life and death was greatly dependent on you, there should be no room for mistakes. This was when I realized that after all this madness is over, I would be facing a different world as a doctor. No, it's not about insecurities or low self-esteem, I know I'm bound to make a mistake. Another episode of House MD, Season 1 Episode 21 ("Three Stories"), saw House lecturing a class of medical students. He remarked that inevitably, a doctor can and will screw up, and anyone interested in being a doctor should learn to accept that fact else he shouldn't even be in the field. I'm just so afraid of how I would take that all in.
When the most guilt-trodden member of the team, Foreman, approached House, apparently asking for some form of absolution, House said the line I used as a title. True enough, there was nothing they could do, but House further remarked that they did their job the way they knew how to. How they think of diagnoses and address diseases are what make them better doctors.
I've basically seen a sneak peek of my future. I'm not saying I'm ready, but I hope I will be. Of course I wouldn't intentionally do that to a patient, but I feel that, when I'm in that position, a dying patient is almost tantamount to an evidence of murder.
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