What do
patients fear most?A clinical student poses the answer to this question which appears to bother none other than the
patient. Although it is asked in the plural and the answer comes from a single scenario, she offers insight into the gradual deletion of the element of compassion from patient care.Set in a teaching hospital, Monica finds herself in the restrictive mold of routine and stereotype. Her initial resolve to be more empathetic is dampened by time constraint. She writes in first person singular, conversational style, about a normal day, when she comes across a remarkable patient whom she identifies as Mr. B. His ordeal with ill health dated back to several months prior to the encounter. He had been through a hip fracture, then intestinal bleeds, cancer suspicion and a gastrectomy surgery stopped midway due to deteriorating state. Over his head also loomed the uncertainties of a repeat surgery. And so when Monica comes on her dutiful rounds and throws the usual all-encompassing "how's everything?", he raises a sincere protest. He wants to ascertain whether the question is rhetorical or real. Monica is therefore compelled to afford him a listening ear, a long one at that. He recounts his worries which seem like an endless stream flowing from the past, present and future and transcending his spirit, soul and body. After an overnight rumination, she returns to ask the
premeditated golden question and to her bewilderment, she gets a seemingly premeditated answer. Mr. B's greatest fear had been on his mind all the while! What then do
patients fear most? A single answer would be statistically invalid as only one patient was considered in this discourse. Moreover, his fears are not the point in Monica's narrative, but the reality that they preoccupied his thoughts and apparently, were ready to be voiced even before the question probed. We are by this drawn to the subtle conclusion that comfort withheld is comfort denied.