The 'thousand-yard stare' may be a new phrase in medical field.
It’s actually a war or postwar phrase. It describes the look of a wired and
tired soldier after the suffering of the war. It
was used first after the painting 'Marines Call It That 2,000 yard Stare' in Life
Magazine by Tom Lea, World War II artist and correspondent. He said about
the real Marine in the portrait.
“He
left the States 31 months ago. He was wounded in his first campaign. He has had
tropical diseases. He half-sleeps at night and gouges Japs out of holes all
day. Two-thirds of his company has been killed or wounded. He will return to
attack this morning. How much can a human being endure?”
After
Vietnam war in 1965, then-Corporal Joe Houle said "The look in their eyes
was like the life was sucked out of them." The 1,000 yard stare totally
describes that look on soldiers’ face.
Why this war stuff in a
health blog? Now see the analogy.
Your duty starts at 8AM. You start with seeing patients in your unit. You
ask them about their overnight problems, any developments and any blood or
other reports. You examine them to see any new changes and you also get some
new faces to see (new admissions), lucky it you get few. You get all the infos
and prepare for the round. After finishing all these if you get chance you can
enter to the morning conference.
And the
round begins. The length of it depends on the number of your patients, their
level of illness, the consultant who is taking the round. Extending upto 1-2 PM
in max. With lots of round works to finish in your hand, lot of discharges you
are left with empty stomach and achy legs. Patients start to ask you “when will
be my discharge paper ready? We have to go long way? Please do us a favor.” You
feel like you are the one that is making the delay. You are the one that will
make them miss their bus to home. But nobody can work with empty stomach and
you are not a Superman.
After
filling your tummy and resting for 10 mins, when you come back to ward,
everybody is staring at you that you have just killed someone. They just don’t
make loud voice but those eyes speak a lot. What can you do? Nothing. Just give
them an ‘indifferent look’ and do your work as nothing has happened.
After finishing the ward works, be prepared for the next session. Emergency
duty. After all that’s your real duty for today.
ER =
Full of patients, 2 sometimes 3 in a single bed. Everybody is looking at you
like you are a Superhero with super power and save them from that mess. But you
know your limitations. So be polite and say that you will have to stay like
this for few more hours or days sometimes. You hear their health problems,
problems of their home, financial problems, personal problems and many more and
write few medicines hoping to cure them all. It may be convincing to them but
you can’t lie yourself. But turn an indifferent face to yourself otherwise you
can’t survive in that battlefield. They request you “Would you please look bed
for their patient, See how bad time he is having here, Please help my patient,
don’t you see his problem?” You feel like you are a blind, you don’t see
people’s problem, you feel like you are doing it intentionally to make your
patient suffer, you feel like you are a sadist. Oops, don’t think so much, just
give an ‘indifferent look’.
You
fight in that battlefield with diseases, problems, adverse situations, I don’t
know what all exactly. Except a short leave for dinner you can’t run away from
that war. After seeing so much pain, listening so many painful, heartbreaking
stories, you find yourself as a tiny Superman with just few pills in your hand
to treat tanks of problems. At ER time runs so fast you don’t know when it’s
midnight and when morning has crept in. When you get your eyelids heavier and
feel you are carrying somebody else body then you will know its 2 or 3 AM.
After all you are a human; you can’t carry other’s body all the time. But you
have to prepare for tomorrow’s morning conference about the cases you admitted.
Write a fair history, make some differentials, and try to do some reading. Is
there anything left now? I don’t think so.
And you
go to your duty room and sleep like a log.
Time
flies so fast when you are in bed. I don’t know why sun is in such a hurry to
rise in the morning. You leave your warm bed again to start the same schedule.
You see the last night admitted patients and your unit patients, have a light
breakfast and be prepared for the morning conference. Sometimes it feels like
it’s easier to make your patients and their family happy than your professors. After an hour you come out of the
conference room with a long sigh and washed brain. Do you have time for another
long breath? I don’t think so dear. Hurry up; it’s your OPD day. Oops..
When
you reach downstairs in OPD, you will see the crowd waiting for you, ready to
tell you their problems and expecting good, very good solution from you. Are
you fresh enough to hear them? Are you in condition to hold more and reach to
the level of their expectations? Umm, I will give a try. Haha, what else can I
do. So give an ‘indifferent
look’ to yourself and treat
the situation as good as u can. With body like a log, with 10 kg of eyelids on
your both eyes and ATP soaked soul, you go on hearing the problems and keep on
writing on the prescriptions. In the mean time, it’s good if you don’t forget
to smile and have some good chat with your patients. After all you are a DOCTOR.
In our
OPD it seems like everybody are singing their own song in their own language.
Everybody is listening to everybody’s problem and everybody’s treatment.
Treatment in wholesale!! With passing time you can’t remember how many patients
you have seen. You just know it by thinning of the crowd inside OPD room and
cramps in your empty stomach that you are coming to an end. “When going gets tough, tough gets
going”. Yeh really a truth. It comes to an end. Can I have a big lunch and
a good sleep? You missed something dear. Did you take the round today? Ahhh.
Ok, let’s take the round now. Again go to ward and see your patients and have
some discharges, blood works. Ok let’s have some lunch now.
Lunch
and some ward works. What’s the time now? Who cares.. Is there anything left?
Who cares.. Do you have any plans? Who cares.. It feels like Dementors (from
Harry Potter) have
just soaked all the energy from your body and you are left with your own dead
body. Just give a thousand
yard stare, carry your bag
(why it feels heavier than yesterday) and run to your room. Music becomes your
true friend, just have earphones in both of your ears, favorite song in full
volume and give a BIG DAMN to the whole world. Yess, this is life, I mean a Resident's life.. :P
