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”.