Doctor and Patient: When the Doctor Has Epilepsy - NYTimes.com

One day during medical school, my classmates and I learned that one of the most well-liked doctors-in-training in the hospital had had a seizure while leading morning work rounds.

The sight of him writhing had caused the other doctors and nurses on the ward to panic. Some stood mute, frozen with fear. An intern, believing that the seizure arose from low blood sugar levels, took his half-eaten jelly doughnut and held it against the mouth of his seizing colleague. Others yelled to the ward secretary to "call a code," and continued to do so even after another dozen doctors and nurses had already arrived on the floor.

The young doctor eventually recovered. But for many of the medical students and doctors who heard about the episode or were on the wards that day, the dread of that morning would linger long beyond our years of training. Epilepsy was, and remains, a frightening and mysterious malady.

For the last 20 years, Dr. Brien J. Smith has tried to change how doctors and patients view epilepsy. Earlier this year, Dr. Smith, chief of neurology at Spectrum Health in Michigan, became chairman of the Epilepsy Foundation. Being elected head of a national organization does not seem unusual for a doctor who is a well-recognized authority and advocate in his or her field. What is extraordinary is that Dr. Smith knows firsthand about the disease and what his patients experience: He learned he had epilepsy when he was in high school.

"Every day I see how off-base health care workers are with seizures and epilepsy," Dr. Smith said recently. "There's a lot of stigma attached, a lot of stereotypes regarding cognitive abilities and how seizures should look."

I spoke to Dr. Smith and asked him about his advocacy work, his diagnosis and how being a patient has affected his interactions with patients and colleagues.

More ...

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/seeing-epilepsy-from-the-patients-point-of-view/?

6 comments:

  1. Such a great blog post you have shared with theirs. I didn't understand what kind of standards they will check it to set for the overall public anyway it is a nice decision. I am foreseeing seeing some more inconspicuous components.

    ReplyDelete
  2. If he has such problem so he can understand the condition of the patient and can explore the details about the problem he has to recover and guide his own patients in the same way to overcome the problem.

    ReplyDelete
  3. They are considered bad patients because they do not complete the procedures and medication when it comes to them so they take help from http://www.rheumatologyfellowship.com/interesting-stats-and-facts-about-rheumatologist-career/ to overcome that habit.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The social event propped up around 35 minutes and contained five one of a kind people recounting their very own when stories. I had thought about Thrive a few months earlier - my nearest friend started taking Thrive and has been posting on Facebook about what Thrive is enhancing the circumstance her. So when I was welcome to this social affair, I was uncommonly interested to find more. Be that as it may, I really want to explore the details however I figure we should day by day visit this site to refresh with most recent reports.

    ReplyDelete
  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Good blog post, It is a good post about the psychology of medical doctors. This http://www.fellowshippersonalstatements.com/how-our-personal-statement-fellowship-service-works/ site is really helpful to the students. The latest development is well to the point that anyone can without quite a bit of a stretch do everything that they require.

    ReplyDelete