The essay "Nice 67 Y.O. male has brush with mortality" by Garrison Keillor (September 2009) made me wonder whether attributes for patients are commonly used in clinical notes. So I looked up mine. And sure enough "very pleasant 52-year-old female", "absolutely delightful 52-year-old woman", "delightful woman in no distress" are recurring themes. I am delighted to read this, of course. In the essay, the nice 67 y.o. man said he had an edgy 27 y.o. man inside him. And I do know exactly what he means despite my calmness that was noted in the reports.
"She is well versed in the literature" and "she has done significant research in this regard" makes me wonder whether biostatisticians make difficult patients, because we question numbers, or easy patients, because we are thinking carefully? During the appointments I very much enjoyed the discussions about risk factors and probabilities, and learning more about treatments and expectations. Stephen Jay Gould commented in his essay "The Median isn't the message" how impossible it is to keep an intellectual away from literature. However, as researchers may well know, it is also easy to selectively choose literature to support one's hopes or fears. I am very grateful for my scientific friends and the doctors who were able to point out other studies to arrive at a more well rounded view of things.
It is also helpful to understand variability. The literature reports averages, which is not necessarily what outlooks are for individuals. This is more than clear when looking at forum posts where a range of experiences are reported, each are slices in time. It is to be expected that recovery paths and post exercise regimes can be quite different from one individual to the next. Whatever path it will be, a "no distress" attitude makes life much easier.
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