Welcome back from Spring Break!
I hope everyone enjoyed their time off! Last Saturday was my first day as a member of the Humans of SHOW program in the SHOW Clinic, and I had such a heartwarming experience interacting with homeless patients. For the rest of this week, I dedicated my time to analyzing works of the renowned physician-writer, Atul Gawande.
At the SHOW Clinic, I was welcomed by UofA, ASU, and NAU medical students and immediately became a part of the community there. After partnering with a student photographer, I interviewed four of the patients experiencing homelessness, in which the questions were geared towards an open and comfortable narration of their story - their path towards homelessness, their emotions and understanding of their current situation, and what they hope to fulfill in the future. In interacting with them, we uncovered that even within the category of "homeless", each individual was unique because of their background and goals, and this drew ties with the purpose of narrative medicine in that each patient is unique even if the illness is categorized under one.
I was intrigued by the stories of each of the four patients and humbled by their optimistic perspective on life despite their struggles. Due to patient confidentiality, I'm not allowed to release names of the patients I interviewed, but fortunately they did sign a consent for me to share their story in hopes to change people's misconceptions of homelessness. The first I interviewed was a woman suffering from epilepsy and domestic violence from her former husband. She pointed out that her loving husband getting a brain tumor, and as a result, becoming violent towards her and her daughter, in complement with her epileptic episodes, was all truly unexpected. After opening up to us, she began crying and even hugged us because her goal is to help others understand that homelessness isn't the result of unstable backgrounds or misconduct in actions. Her words showed us that homelessness is a temporary situation that happens to the person affected, and each person has tried and will continue to try their hardest to come out of the situation. I then interviewed a Navajo man who had been in and out of jail three times due to misconceptions regarding his ethnicity, and when asked about his daughters, began crying in hopes to use the resources at SHOW to stabilize and provide for his children. After a short snack break, (although we really weren't able to eat anything after listening to their stories of suffering) we interviewed a man who was relatively hesitant to speak as well as a religiously devout woman who stated that she wasn't homeless because she had a permanent home in heaven and that she was simply in a "transition state here at SHOW".
Although each individual's background and future outlook was unique, the one thing that was consistent was that they were truly thankful for the care they were receiving at the clinic. What seemed to us as almost an impossible style of living was one they cherished and wanted to utilize as a foundation for their dedication towards a future purpose.
Somehow, this one day was much more substantial than the six days of reading I did, but why not lighten the mood with a brief description of Atul Gawande's work. Gawande sheds a new light on medicine by introducing its paradox of being both extraordinary and less than ordinary. By tying in the importance of humanities and patient stories, he discusses that as much as medicine is advancing and saves life after life, medicine is essentially a trial and error process because physicians can't know the right way to treat a person since each is so physiologically and psychologically different.
In my next blog, I will talk more about this complex analysis of the practice of medicine because turns out Atul Gawande even has a movie!
Thank you so much for reading!
Anivarya
At the SHOW Clinic, I was welcomed by UofA, ASU, and NAU medical students and immediately became a part of the community there. After partnering with a student photographer, I interviewed four of the patients experiencing homelessness, in which the questions were geared towards an open and comfortable narration of their story - their path towards homelessness, their emotions and understanding of their current situation, and what they hope to fulfill in the future. In interacting with them, we uncovered that even within the category of "homeless", each individual was unique because of their background and goals, and this drew ties with the purpose of narrative medicine in that each patient is unique even if the illness is categorized under one.
I was intrigued by the stories of each of the four patients and humbled by their optimistic perspective on life despite their struggles. Due to patient confidentiality, I'm not allowed to release names of the patients I interviewed, but fortunately they did sign a consent for me to share their story in hopes to change people's misconceptions of homelessness. The first I interviewed was a woman suffering from epilepsy and domestic violence from her former husband. She pointed out that her loving husband getting a brain tumor, and as a result, becoming violent towards her and her daughter, in complement with her epileptic episodes, was all truly unexpected. After opening up to us, she began crying and even hugged us because her goal is to help others understand that homelessness isn't the result of unstable backgrounds or misconduct in actions. Her words showed us that homelessness is a temporary situation that happens to the person affected, and each person has tried and will continue to try their hardest to come out of the situation. I then interviewed a Navajo man who had been in and out of jail three times due to misconceptions regarding his ethnicity, and when asked about his daughters, began crying in hopes to use the resources at SHOW to stabilize and provide for his children. After a short snack break, (although we really weren't able to eat anything after listening to their stories of suffering) we interviewed a man who was relatively hesitant to speak as well as a religiously devout woman who stated that she wasn't homeless because she had a permanent home in heaven and that she was simply in a "transition state here at SHOW".
Although each individual's background and future outlook was unique, the one thing that was consistent was that they were truly thankful for the care they were receiving at the clinic. What seemed to us as almost an impossible style of living was one they cherished and wanted to utilize as a foundation for their dedication towards a future purpose.
Somehow, this one day was much more substantial than the six days of reading I did, but why not lighten the mood with a brief description of Atul Gawande's work. Gawande sheds a new light on medicine by introducing its paradox of being both extraordinary and less than ordinary. By tying in the importance of humanities and patient stories, he discusses that as much as medicine is advancing and saves life after life, medicine is essentially a trial and error process because physicians can't know the right way to treat a person since each is so physiologically and psychologically different.
In my next blog, I will talk more about this complex analysis of the practice of medicine because turns out Atul Gawande even has a movie!
Thank you so much for reading!
Anivarya
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