Treatment and Recovery

I've been thinking about the ways in which we treat patients. There are quite a few options available for doctors nowadays. We can use medications, talk therapy, exercise, surgery, and the list goes on.

There's something that strikes me about those methods though. They all cause pain in some form. Whether it's emotional, mental distress or even physical pain, they cause some level of discomfort.

Surgery is the extreme example. It's the final Hail Mary pass. Doctors don't come to decisions of surgery lightly; even the cut-happy surgeons don't like to perform surgery if it's not in the best interest of the patient. It's because it's traumatic. It's painful as hell for the patients.

Although the show is overly dramatic and extreme, there's a closing monologue from an episode of Grey's Anatomy (6.12) that actually illustrates this point fairly well.

In surgery, the healing process begins with a cut, an incision, the tearing of flesh. We have to damage the healthy flesh in order to expose the unhealthy. It feels cruel and against common sense, but it works. You risk exposure for the sake of healing...

It's true. You have to injure the healthy parts in order to treat. Chemotherapy and radiation damage healthy tissue in order to kill tumors. Antibiotics kill the healthy bacteria in the process of taking out the nasty bacteria. Exercise actually causes muscle to tear--they're only microtears, but tearing nonetheless.

But the tears help to build new muscle.

So now we're damaged. The bad has been removed, but we still have a long road of recovery in front of us. And recovery is painful.

As I think back on the surgeries I've had, recovery was terrible. Each was terrible and challenging in it's own way, but still terrible nonetheless. But the pain eventually fades and we forget about all of that (until the next surgery, that is). Recovery takes time, but it does happen.

And actually it's pretty amazing how quickly our bodies can recover from the trauma we cause it. Even if it's just a small trauma, a swollen knee, for instance. We change our gait to favor the other knee, almost subconsciously. We learn to turn our whole bodies to look to the side if we have a stiff neck. We avoid the foods that cause heartburn. We do anything to avoid the pain until the injury heals.

It's true, the healing process takes time and is extremely painful. We may never be back to 100%, but the entire process starts when we remove the bad parts. The bad bacteria. The bad tumor cells. The bad memories. So maybe the treatment, although traumatic and painful, is really the best thing for us in the long run.

I just wish surgeons would remember to tell their patients that you'll feel like complete shit after surgery, rather than the "You'll feel some post-op discomfort" bull they usually spew before going under the knife.

So to my classmates, let's be honest with our patients...The road to recovery is going to be hard. The first few days are always the worst. But you can do it. And I will be there to support you along the way.

Oh and here's a script for a few pain pills to get you through the worst of it. ;)