The Cheerful Oncologist invokes a key principle in medicine: The patient is the one with the disease.
Source: The Conundrum of Happiness
The patient, sitting before me with the disease, was suffering from two frustrating symptoms: dyspnea and pain that, unknown at the time, were actually the source of his misery. Myself being the person commanded to solve these problems I therefore placed him on appropriate pain medications, arranged to have his large pleural effusion drained and started his chemotherapy. My patient’s cheerfulness had rotted from the effects of his cancer. If I wanted a happy patient I needed to grab a plow and start sowing.
If there is a lesson in this vignette it is that when it comes to helping the sick, all the fancy office furniture, nattily-dressed assistants, self-congratulatory advertisements - all the gum-flapping-hand-holding-soulful-eye-gazing office encounters don’t compare one bit with the doctor who can solve the patient’s problem. As the father of modern medicine, Sir William Osler put it:
“To know just what has to be done, then to do it, comprises the whole philosophy of practical life.”
Most elegantly put - or as my patients say, “You want me to be happy, Doc? Then make me feel better!”
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