Obviously it's always hard when you tell a patient you can't help them, because maybe it's a physical constraint with the surgery, but in regards to telling a patient that they're not realistic and they're not appropriate psychological candidates, we're pretty used to it.
The patient must be at the center of this transition. Our largest struggle is not with the patient who takes their medication regularly, but with the patient who does not engage in their own care. Technology can be the driver that excites a patient with the prospect of wellness.
When a patient tells a doctor that every symptom is the most horrible ever - and the physical exam and labs are normal - we often suspect something psychological is going on. The symptoms aren't fake. They're physical manifestations of anxiety, depression, and stress. So while I'm always on the lookout for a serious underlying disease.
It's been the greatest gift that I've been given. Because no matter how much my parents have asked me to be more patient, no matter much my husband has asked me to be more patient, none of it mattered until I had a kid. And then all of sudden I was like, "Oh. I have to be more patient." They were all like, "Yeah! We've been telling you that for twenty years!" And I find it to be a gift. Every day I'm more patient.
Brain surgery couldn't happen without the patient's own active voice to guide the work. The patient is part of the surgical team here, perhaps the most important part, and above all, that's what makes neurosurgery different.
Simple intervention - the time spent with a patient - is a very powerful ingredient of the patient-doctor contract. The evidence is against the traditions such as surgery for back pain being true - the evidence says it doesn't work.
It takes an average of three hours after the first symptoms of a heart attack are recognized by the patient, before that patient arrives at an emergency room. Symptoms are often denied by the patient - particularly us men, because we are very brave.
If a patient is cold, if a patient is feverish, if a patient is faint, if he is sick after taking food, if he has a bed-sore, it is generally the fault not of the disease, but of the nursing.
I think if the doctor is a good doctor and has a patient's best interest in mind then he's not going to allow anything to compromise that patient's care. The bottom line is the doctor has to care for his patient. You have to have that overwhelming sense of welfare for your patient.
It's hard to remain patient when it seems so debilitating to do so. The balance comes with staying ambitious while being patient.
I actually completely suck at being a bioethicist. What I do is history of medicine and patient advocacy. Patient advocacy is actually the opposite of bioethics, because bioethicists are the people who increasingly set up and justify the systems we patient advocates have to fight.
At the WTO, it's never a general surgery. It's always a very specific, clinical, precise surgery - and you can't miss the target. If you miss the target, you kill the patient. It's as simple as that.
One can envisage taking cells from a patient with sickle-cell anaemia or an inherited blood disorder and using the Cas9 system to fix the underlying genetic cause of the disease by putting those cells back into the patient and allowing them to make copies of themselves to support the patient's blood.
I think in business, you have to learn to be patient. Maybe I'm not very patient myself. But I think that I've learned the most is be able to wait for something and get it when it's the right time.
I am like a doctor. I have written a prescription to help the patient. If the patient doesn't want all the pills I've recommended, that's up to him. But I must warn that next time I will have to come as a surgeon with a knife.
You cannot make your life move faster than it's moving. No matter how urgent your situation may seem to be, things are going to happen when they happen, not a minute sooner. Be patient with yourself. Be patient with others. Be patient with life. Patience always pays off.
I tell residents, if you gave me two patients with identical problems, and one of them had family at the bedside with a lot of laughter, plus photos and a quilt from home, and next door was another patient who was alone every time I came by - I'm going to be very nervous about the isolated patient's mental status.