Our latest module in medical school was entitled Emergency
Medical Procedures. In this module, I expected to learn to perform various
medical procedures such as Intravenous catheterization, urinary catheterization,
parenteral administration of medications, endotracheal intubation and more.
However, what I have learn was more than that. I have learned “humanness”.
Before starting medical school, as a nurse I have been in
contact with a lot of patients and have performed some of the procedures above.
I must admit, that during the performance of the said procedures, It didn’t
matter to me what the patient would feel when I do this procedures. As long as
I could finish the procedure as early as possible, that was okay for me. That
was it. It was time to move on to the next patient for another procedure.
However, in the module instead of practicing the procedures
on patients or dummies, our facilitator asked us to practice it on our
classmates (except for urinary catheterization and endotracheal intubation of
course!). The thing is, not all of my classmates are experienced medical
providers. Imagine being practice on by them!
After being punctured on almost every part of our upper
extremities, the facilitator decided to end the class. But before he left, he
told us that the purpose of the module was to teach us what it felt like to be
the patient. Being the dummies for the procedure. It was for us to understand
that these procedures although beneficial is painful. That it should be done
with outmost care and compassion. Even just a year of working in a government
hospital, I have seen a lot of medical providers performing these procedures
without regards to the patient. Even practicing on them. Our facilitator taught
us not to do so. He taught us to look as patients not as a disease or sickness.
But as a human being that has feelings and emotions, with empathy. And that is “humanness”.