I can't believe it's the last full week of Family Medicine already! The good rotations go so quickly.

On Friday I was interviewing this 80-something year old lady accompanied by her daughter with very vague complaints of feeling unwell and clammy. I was excited to hear my first real crackles in her left lung -- both because I heard them and because it gave me a diagnosis (lobar pneumonia). I presented to my attending, and then she went in and listened too.

While she moving across the lungs towards the spot where I heard the crackles, I was thinking, "I hope she hears crackles too!" I wanted to be right. Then I realized I was hoping that this frail elderly lady actually had pneumonia, and I felt pretty bad. So I started hoping that my attending wouldn't hear crackles... but I couldn't get quite as much enthusiasm behind that.

Being a student unfortunately puts you in that position sometimes. Like on surgery, I occasionally found my self hoping a patient would get sicker so I could see what would be an interesting operation. (I have to say though, I never wished the Psych patients were any sicker than they already were.)

So yeah, the attending heard the crackles too and we gave antibiotics and asked her to get a chest X-Ray. And my wishing one way or the other really didn't affect the outcome.


On the flipside, I just found out that an old friend (my age) is very ill, on a respirator now. And I'm wishing and hoping and praying with all my heart that she gets better, and I have to believe that all of that is doing something, because at the moment, it's all I have to give to her and her family.