dr. ronald e. mcnair acknowledgements - University of St. Thomas

Oluwademilade Adediran
Psychology Mattering
Section two
Caring behaviors exhibited by doctors/
health care professionals: (psychological)
Recommendations to doctors
Section two
Listen to patients and let them
guide you:
Section two
Answer questions:
“I had a lot of psychological help from my doctor and my nurses, they were cheering
me on saying I was doing great and it was better for me to keep doing this than sit
home and worry, which I really agree, I’m glad that I kept playing and teaching.”
“Um… I didn’t feel like I was fighting for me life because I kept getting
encouragement from my doctor and from the nurses that my situation while it was
not good, it wasn’t horrible, I mean it could have been a whole lot worse. They
decided that with my history and with it being a HER2 positive tumor that they
needed to treat it aggressively to make sure it didn’t come back. That was actually
their focus the whole time, they kept telling me we’re making you this sick to make
sure that it, you know to REDUCE the possibility of it coming back. So mostly I
was just thinking I had to endure this so that maybe I wouldn’t have to do it again.”
“I thought I was going to die. I thought between the kidney disease and the cancer
and the chemo and all that stuff, yeah, I thought I wasn’t going to make it...but
that didn’t last very long. That was about 2 weeks and then I expressed that to my
doctor and I think what I said, “I felt like I had a loaded gun pointed at my head”
and he laughed and he said “Oh well, they’re waving it around, but they’re not
pointing it at you!” his humor helped me get past it.”
Be as honest as you can and listen to your patients and remember that they’re people
and it could be your daughter or your wife or your mother.”
“Listen and investigate. Don’t tell me… oh… yeah… well, we just… you know.
Listen, investigate, and don’t even necessarily sympathize, I don’t want that. Just
find out what the problem is. And if you don’t know then tell me that.”
“Well, yeah, even though they try to dress it up, it’s um…I don’t know, what I
would tell the medical profession…is basically let the patient guide your response,
rather than having a programmed or a canned response or treatment…you know
that you tell everybody.”
“Well that they are treating a human being and, you know, I think that it is kind
of symptomatic in the medical profession across the board not just with cancer
patients but I think but it should be particularly in terms of people who are seriously
ill and facing cancer that they are dealing with a person who has or who had up to
that point a full life and, um, that things that they enjoyed and, um, that what they
are going through is very scary and not to be, um, sarcastic or flip with their answers
that anything that the patient has to ask them is a worthwhile question no matter
how silly it sounds. To not be intimidated by questions and I went in, I did a lot of
reading on the internet and I put together all kinds of questions and some doctors
were okay with it and others weren’t. Um, but you know the fact is that my approach
was that knowledge is power and if you don’t take the time and ask the questions
and try to get answers that you understand, um, at least for me that I felt like that
I was just floundering that I that I needed that that to hold on to.”
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