Pregnant and 40

Beer Meter:  0 it was actually a tolerable night

This is a quickie:

Last night amoungst the heart failures and asthma exacerbations, I had a patient who will be turning 40 tomorrow.  She's homeless, her kids have stolen her glucose meter, she has no money for her medications, and she doesn't have a regular physician.  From time to time she goes to the walk-in clinic to take care of whatever ails her at the moment... oh, yeah, did I mention I diagnosed her pregnancy last night?

This got me thinking of a poem I wrote in my Literature class while in college.  Our subject was to make a political comment on society.  Mine was called "A Matter of Timing.  I think I remember my first line as being:

For or against abortion?  For or against the death penalty?  What I guess you're really saying is it's just a matter of timing.
I then went on to describe a person not allowed to have an abortion who then goes and has a child they don't want.  So the child is raised in a loveless poor environment where they go on to do drugs, steal, end up killing someone and then get the death penalty.

Now, I am not advocating abortion or the death penalty, but this situation made me think of that poem again and made me wonder what this child's life is going to be like.  When you wonder why doctors sometimes seem cold and distant, I think it's because of situations like this.  You have to block yourself off sometimes from certain aspects of your patient's lives or else you would probably end up doing more harm than good.

Now, off to the trenches again.

Tags: abortion, death penalty, poetry, physician distancing