Silence

I am on pysch. And there is a lot of silence. Uncomfortable silence. The kind of silence where someone sobs.  I don’t like silence. I am a talker. I talk too much. its one of my biggest vices. I am not a good listener. Its something I have had to force myself to change since I have been in medical school.  I am also a doer….and after complaining about int med for 12 solid weeks. I actually missed it a tiny, tiny bit today. I wanted to do something other than just talk about it. This man has terminal cancer…he is depressed. I wanted to call a palliative care consult and read the heme/onc recommendations and call the chaplain.  But my job today was to sit and listen. Sit, listen and wait for him to finish saying what he needed to say.

my resident keeps saying there are many forms of thearpy….he is right.

and like so many moments in medical school I realize again that I am in need of the very medicine I am learning to prescribe in one way or another.  I think we all do.