Name a quality that makes a person a good family doctor. According to a 2011 audience survey from the game show Family Feud it's being a: 1. Good listener, 2. Caring, 3. Intelligent, 4. Patience, and 5. Honest. These are the opinions of people who could be our patients. These qualities along with character is what lead me to family medicine.
Growing up I was very close to my aunt. I saw her overcome many personal obstacles with composure. Our time spent together was always filled with countless laughs but this particular summer evening the tone felt different. That evening my aunt sat down with my mother and explained her unexpected diagnosis. As I lay with my aunt the night before her big surgery, she told me many stories. Most of the stories were happy recollections intertwined with some emotional recollections. She was distracting herself from the events which would follow the next morning.…show more content… In particular, there was Ms. L (name altered), she was a busy mother of three. Her health was the farthest thing on her mind but after a family member was diagnosed with a serious heart condition she was encouraged by her sister to come in for a long overdue checkup. Along with my attending, we concluded her first visit by ordering some routine labs, a pap smear, mammogram and a colonoscopy. A week later, while reviewing her results it was found that her glucose was extremely high. "Tell me what you know about diabetes.", I asked Ms. L after we'd gone over her all her test results. "Eating too much sugar?" she replied. I gave her a quick smile, grabbed a sheet of paper and started with the basics. I followed Ms. L through the course of her next few followups and was proud to track her progress. This experience was the foundation for my interest in patient education along with the importance of routine visits and preventative
