IMO, if it were possible, every doctor should have to experience for a while, what their patients deal with.
I think it would make them more compassionate.
I knew of a young OB whose wife delivered a month premature. I figured it would make him a better doctor because he had been there and knew what it was like to have a child having been born in that situation.
Of course, she was treated like royalty by the nursing staff, like the rest of us weren’t.
There was a movie some years back called “The Doctor” with William Hurt that is based on Dr. Edward Rosenbaum’s 1988 memoir “A Taste Of My Own Medicine” in which he described his experience being a physician who is dignosed with lung cancer.
I don’t recall if the movie was any good-it has been nearly thirty years now, but as anyone who has ever worked in healthcare knows, there are positive things you can take from going from being a healthcare provider to being a healthcare recipient, and compassion is one of them.
Many healthcare providers opt to get healthcare at other hospitals than the one they work at, and you are treated pretty much the same as any other patient there where few, if any people know you.
Personally, I have never had a problem with understanding and feeling compassion for patients, but there are people who, for a variety of reason, seem to have lost that.
When I was a student, I remember our instructor showing us a brain death study on a young automobile accident patient. As we clustered around, she put the films up, and after going over it, she said “This patient is DED...” and I found myself searching my mind for a syndrome with the acronym of DED. I was thinking “What is that? “DiEncephlographic Dysfunction” or...” and I raised my hand to ask “Excuse me, what is DED?” and she said “Dead”.
She was not a mean person, was excellent and caring for her patients, and was great at what she did, but it struck me as totally hard and unfeeling. I was very young. It was only after I had worked for a while and seen things, that I realized that people who work in an environment where they come into close contact with human suffering and tragedy over a long period of time cope with stress and terrible things they see in very different ways. She would never have treated a patient in any way other than fully respectfully and compassionately, but this was probably some way of coping for her.
My wife underwent cancer treatment at the facility where she worked. She “hob nobs” with the Senior Executive team. She was, as most would suggest, “connected.”
Having stood next to her through the entire process, I can tell you that it got us recommendations as to who to see. The hospital presidents would say, “Go to this guy.” That was nice.
Once in the system...we were in line with everyone else. She suffered the same indignities as everyone else. She received the same outstanding compassion and care from the infusion nurses as anyone else. The billing system drained our savings...like everyone else.
On the rare occasion we were treated by someone she “knew”, the attention was slightly closer. But that would be true if we were the nurses next door neighbors. That is just human nature.
The ONLY time we witnessed any “special” treatment was when I was getting rotator cuff surgery. My wife was high school friends with the PACU nurse. She gave me warm blankets when everyone else was given cold ones. LOL
Hospitals are like any other “factory” or “retail” environment in the world. Personal relationships will always get you a little bit more. People are not robots.