Medical professionalism: a GP's perspective

"A really good liver"

I remember when I was a medical student the excitement of going round the wards with a keen doctor who would take us to feel a "really good spleen" or listen to an "interesting cardiac murmur". Like my fellow students in our new, pristine white coats, I was very excited. However, something in me rebelled and a little voice said, "This isn't quite right". It was not that we did not greet the patient, ask permission to examine and do all that medical etiquette and politeness required. I felt uneasy and could not articulate why. One day my group was invited by the professor to examine a "really good liver". We all trotted behind him, got to the patient's bedside and I recognised her distinctive face immediately. I thought, "This isn't a liver, she's a person - my old teacher". She had taught me in primary school. It is a lesson that remained with me throughout the rest of medical school and my practice of medicine. Patients have to be seen in their entirety and not as fragmented parts.