So yesterday I took on a patient who seemed to have pretty severe altered mental status and concern for dementia. We had difficulty communicating with her so it was hard to tell if she was actually impaired or it was just that she was mostly deaf + language barrier. We erred mostly on the side of dementia given her age.
The this morning I was able to have a somewhat coherent conversation with her in my broken Spanish. She asked for my name, and I told her. She was no smiling and very pleasant. I was hoping that this was an indication that she was more with it than we thought. I went back and report the news to my team and we went about our day.
Later on I found out that she had been asking for me by throughout the day. I went to visit her, and she seemed to remember who I was, though maybe was a bit confused about me role. But still that made me feel good.
I need it to because I feel like I’ve been really flubbing on my presentation and my clinical decision making. My assessment have been all over the place and my plans overridden. It’s part of the learning processes, but also chances are, based on how evaluations are structured, these mistakes will effect my grade, ultimately playing a role in whether I match or not. This is something I historically have not been taking as seriously as I should, and it’s hard for me to take it seriously based on my philosophy towards learning, which is maybe a lame excuse, but that’s not something that it so easily changed (I know because I used to be on the opposite end of the spectrum).
TTITF:
Happy memories, friends who are as uncool as I am, popcorn chicken
nANIMOv 