What It Means to Heal

I’d like to start with an anecdote, if I may. When my oldest brother, with whom I’ve very close, was in medical school, he’d often complain about the types of people he’d see during his rotations (the biggest patient population that my mother and I would tease him about was pediatrics, because he felt like he couldn’t talk to them intelligently). My mother and I subsequently took it upon ourselves to educate him during his early medical training on what it mean to truly be a doctor. We accomplished this in the traditional Watkins way, using irrefutable logic mixed into friendly banter and gentle reminders when appropriate, to get our points across that being a doctor extends beyond the science. Mind you, my brother isn’t an unfeeling individual at all, he has a very big heart, but it needed some higher education, if you will. Fast-forward a few years. During his residency, he related two experiences to me that signaled to me that he had softened a bit and had, in my opinion, grown as a physician.

The first experience, he called me specifically at the end of one day to tell me that I’d be proud of him. Naturally, I was curious. He proceeded to explain to me that he had just gotten off a night shift in the care units where he had gone in and checked in on everyone of his patients personally, turning off their televisions as he left so they could sleep. To one patient in particularly, he read aloud a small stack of cards they had received in the mail before turning out the lights. The second experience, he emailed me last year after working a shift at the children’s hospital with a little story of a little girl who had to get an MRI:

A little present for you - I was working in the MRI scanner today and took care of a little 9 y/o girl who came in for a repeat MRI brain for evaluation of her seizure disorder. What made me think of you today was the little girl came in clutching a stuffed saber-toothed tiger in her arms (ie. Tiggy). She looked very cute with it and I promised her her tiger would be with her throughout the scan even though she'd be under general anesthesia. Since the tiger itself contained no metal, this wasn't a problem. The scene was so memorable that I had to [tell] you…the little girl under general inside, and the readily identifiable tail of her stuffed saber-toothed tiger lying on top while she went through the study. Don't let it ever be said that I don't have a soft spot. =)

(FYI, “Tiggy” was my own stuffed tiger that I use to haul around with me everywhere when I was little). I told my brother the same thing after each of these experiences, “Now you know what it means to be a doctor.”

I apologize for taking a page there-bouts to tell you about my brother, but his metamorphosis is the thing that always comes to my mind when I think about true healing because, to me, it demonstrates that healing goes beyond the science. Much like many things in this life, it is the marriage of art and science. It is impossible for healing to be a truly perfect science because people are inherently an imperfect science – we aren’t clear-cut equations, but living probabilities. As a healthcare professional in two related realms, this is extremely important to me and my practice, and no matter how hard I try to dissociate myself from it a bit, I can’t help but somewhat “adopt” my patients/athletes/clients. I put so much my time and myself into them, how can I not without being a complete sociopath? Healing is a holistic practice, in whatever proportions deemed appropriate. At least in my mind its suppose to be.... (lol insurance companies may say otherwise)

Funny thing is, also,.... I don't hold that medicine has the market on healing, either.... but that's another story for another time.