"Fuh..fuhh..tiup debu." Ayat cliche bila dah berabad menyepi.
Now that I just started Psychiatry rotation, I finally have the luxury of time to update this blog after completing 9 weeks of Paediatrics rotation. I feel blessed to be chosen to experience an enriching journey in this medical profession. It's amazing how it taught me different life lesson each day.
Long story cut short; we had an elderly patient with major depression few days ago who lose hope to live after going through tough times in life. As expected, being a fragile person, I cried with the patient while interviewing him. It's heartbreaking to find out how some people can be so unfortunate in life. It gets to me more and more these days. I'm struggling to restrain my 'wants' because if I don't, it makes me feel guilty if I succumb to it. I even feel bad eating KFC, knowing some people out there can't even afford a decent meal. But to be honest, to suppress or to succumb to 'wants'; it's mental torturing either way. For the past few weeks, I've been craving for Secret Recipe cakes like so badly that it appeared in my dream yesterday.
Anyway, after we finished interviewing that patient, Prof Russel opened the table for questions. So I asked if we should actually close the interview by giving advice to patient i.e. tell him what's past is past, what's gone can never be returned, what ever happened is a blessing in disguise, we still need to continue living, we have a duty to perform in this world. His response was;
"Do you think the patient did not already know this?"
And I said, "Well, sometimes some people just need other people to tell that to them to make more sense, right?"
"You see, sometimes what patient need is just someone to listen. Doing what you said will only make them shut us off and there gone all your effort to build rapport and trust. We may think that it is the good thing to say, but we might want to question ourselves; by doing that, are we doing any good to the patient or are we merely comforting ourselves believing we've done good?"- Prof Russel.
And at that moment, I realized that is exactly my weakness. I am that kind of person who find it a must to sort of make a closure statement in every dispute. All these while, I believed that by having a final say is how things should end properly. And I was wrong. Sometimes, we just have to leave things as it is. Some things are better left unsaid.
:'(
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