With all the medical legal suits today, I was just lettting folks know I am responding as a patient with a disease and not as a medical provider. Sad and unfortunate as it may be, there are people who would choice to misinterpret shared experiences with receiving medical advice/care from a health care person on line.
Now to a more exciting line of discussion.
Yes, yes and yes to your question concerning the impact of incurring a life altering disease and surviving. While in the military, as a physician, I was of the mind that I was immortal so to speak and could accomplish anything I set my mind to. I know for a fact there were times this attitude got in the way of common sense and common courtesy. While providing pretty good care, I really never allowed myself to feel the patients pain or look at a situation from their perspective. I was emotionally distant.
This has all changed. I no longer am aloof from the patients perceptions and emotions. I listen a lot more carefully then I ever did previously. I let the patient stop talking first before I open my mouth to speak which is no easy task. I try and understand their concerns from their perspective and I've learned to better accept myself for not having all the answers as I use to think I was expected to. I have heard over and over the comment, " you're the first doctor who has taken the time to actually listen and talk with me about my issues", which is always a challenge given the highly stressful work environment for the average primary care physician where 15 minutes is the standard appointment. When you look at getting the patient into a room, getting vitals checked, listening and examining the patient, deriving a plan, printing prescritions/instructions/ initiating referrals, typing a clinical note into an electronic medical record etc it doesn't take long before you are getting further and further behind and more and more frustrated. The list of potential frustrations is lengthy and usually out of one's control. Never the less, I still truly believe in the importance of taking time to really listen to my patients.
Personally speaking I think every medical student and every medical resident in training should be requuired to spend at least three days in a hospital setting as a patient.