Adam Lamble

I knew the diagnosis wasn’t going to be good, but it wasn’t until I begrudgingly read the words Multiple Myeloma on his chart did I realize how grim it was. I sighed to myself, realizing how difficult it was going to be telling my patient that he had cancer.

“Mr. Smith, may I come in?” I calmly asked after knocking on the door. This wasn’t the first time I had seen Mr. Smith. A week earlier I had met him for the first time when he came to me complaining of some innocent back pain.

After I deceivingly asked him how he was feeling and we exchanged pleasantries, I continued, “I know we’ve met before but I would like to reintroduce myself. My name is Adam and I’m a medical student.” Even before the words left my mouth I was wondering how a team could justify sending a medical student in to break this kind of news to a patient. I could only imagine what was going through his mind.

“As you know, we had you come back in today because we wanted to discuss your lab results. We were concerned by the cause of your back pain and that’s why we ran these tests.” After a brief pause, I swallowed and continued, “The results weren’t what we were hoping for.”

“You’ve been diagnosed with a cancer called Multiple Myeloma.” He slowly raised his hand to his eyes as he began to cry. I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen a grown man cry.

As I let the silence do my talking, my mind began to wander. Why hadn’t he brought any family members with him? Then I began to imagine all of the traitorous antibodies coursing through his body, recruiting his cells to betray the bones in his back.

I chose not to go into details about his disease because for one, I didn’t know them all, but more importantly, the information would fall on deaf ears due to the emotional levity of the news. Instead, the conversation continued with me clumsily stressing that he wasn’t alone and that this wasn’t the end. I tried to explain that there are treatments available and that my team and I will be with him every step of the way. Then I awkwardly excused myself, not exactly sure how to end the conversation.

As I stepped out of his room I saw that some of my classmates had already finished breaking similar news. I waited in the hall patiently, reflecting and relieved that the first time I had to tell someone they had cancer, they were an actor instead of a patient. My thoughts were then interrupted by “Mr. Smith” who invited me back into the exam room to discuss the encounter.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 31st, 2010 at 10:25 pm and is filed under Medical School. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.