Cell 2 Soul: The Humane Health Care Blog

What Matters To Me

The question “What matters to me?” (WMTM) allows patients to tell physicians and other care providers about their interests, values, and preferences, as full humans, not just recipients of care. This philosophy is particularly hard for providers to follow during consultations lasting only 10 to15 minutes.

Dr. Sosena Kebede and I have designed a questionnaire to enable us to learn more about what our patients think about this issue.  This is a work in progress.  If you want to see and fill out our questionnaire please access this link.

WMTM has been looked at from a different perspective in Scotland and British Columbia.  Those programs can be accessed at: Download What Matters To Me Programs

Diagram from Scottish Questionnaire

 

 

 

 

War Everywhere

It is Spring.
A rabbit made his home
in my yard and did not run away,
when I spoke to him.

I hold on to
this picture in a dark, windowless
room with six TVs blasting
Death notices:
For patients plugged-in
Fo bags of diluted poisons.

 

Author Bio: Shirley Adelman

This poem appeared in: Kaleidoscope: Exploring the Experience of Disability through Literature and the Fine Arts, No. 73, July 2016. An online journal to be viewed at www.udsakron.org and www.scribd.com

Miss Diagnosis

Many research studies reveal breakdowns in the diagnostic process that cause a staggering toll of harm to patients.  Here is one woman's story.

Miss Diagnosis
by Beth McKim

It is with extreme trepidation that I begin to write this. The details are painful to remember, and I am highly superstitious. It’s almost as if re-telling the events could reverse the previous results.

My saga began when I was 22 years old, working my first job as a social worker for the county welfare department…

Read full text: Download Miss Diagnosis by beth mckim-1

Miss McKim's chronicle of faulty diagnoses reminds me of a poem Gilda Radner published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1989.

Doctors are whippersnappers in ironed white coats
Who spy up your rectums and look down your throats
And press you and poke you with sterilized tools
And stab at solutions that pacify fools.
I used to revere them and do what they said
Till I learned what they learned on was already dead.

Author Bio:   Beth McKim is a writer and actress. She lives in Houston, a city that has undergone severe challenges in recent months , but remained strong and victorious. Beth is a standardized patient who works to help medical students develop empathetic interpersonal skills. Her poetry, essays, and short stories appear regularly in niche publications.