Author: Richard Cone, PhD
During my medical training, I can recall having the opportunity to do a couple of weeks of training with an interesting East Indian physician named Dr. Nathan Mohit *. I will never forget how he and his colleagues had taken the time to teach me many of the basic skills that I have today. He also taught me intentionally or coincidentally, many important medical concepts, one of which I am about to describe.
I was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I could hardly wait to get away from the stark prairie habitat and as such, found it hard to believe that anyone would actually choose to live in northern Alberta. I soon came to realize that the appeal came largely from the peacefulness and simple beauty of a farm type community.
Dr. Mohit and his colleagues had spent a significant part of their lives in harsh, politically unstable places. The peaceful, quiet harmony of a small northern Alberta farm community was probably quite a change for someone like him. I also soon realized that the locals readily accepted these healers with genuine appreciation of the services they provided.
I remember being impressed that Dr. Mohit had received his medical training at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. It was not all that easy to get the opportunity to work with him because of his favorable reputation at our medical school. I felt rather fortunate to finally be afforded that privilege and enjoyed his thick British accent.
Dr. Mohit's wife was quite unlike him in many ways. She was fair skinned with bright red hair and did not have any accent. I never did inquire how they had come to know one another but when you saw them together with their children; it was quite obvious that they were a very close family unit. She certainly had more than her share of the family duties with his very full professional life. They both seemed to accept that he spent too much time working.
It was enjoyable working with Dr. Mohit. He was full of energy and he quite obviously enjoyed his profession as he always had a wide smile. He was serious in his approach to medicine but he also had a very human side. He did not try to portray the typical tough, surgical personality.
I went into work one morning and noticed that it was unusually quiet at the nurse's station. I soon realized that that Dr. Mohit was absent and one of his colleagues was doing ward rounds with the nurses. This situation was quite out of the ordinary as I had come to appreciate the morning routine of ward rounds with Dr. Mohit. He would carry each chart from the chart rack, reading new entries, noting new lab results, all the while commenting on the unique pathologic process that had made its presence known. He knew that he did not write legibly and as such, dictated chart notes as we went from room to room. He did manage to scribble illegible orders which were later re-transcribed from frantic notes written on a separate sheet by the head nurse.
I had inquired where the fine doctor was this morning and was told by one of the nurses that Dr. Mohit himself had experienced a rather large rectal bleed overnight. If it is not shocking enough to see the toilet bowl full of blood, it is probably worse when this is painless and occurs quite suddenly out of the blue.
Dr. Mohit had developed his bleed in a rather unexpected manner and had quite wisely and promptly sought medical attention in the big city. I think that many factors were considered in making that decision. One being the avoidance of having a close colleague examine his bottom with the assistance of a local nurse. Also, for this particular problem, there are often better facilities available in major centers. The problem exists that even if you are important in the local hospital, you are just another number in the big city.
That evening at the request of the nurse, I went over to the hospital to see a patient in the ER for one of the other local doctors. I saw Dr. Mohit sitting at the desk at the nurses station. As I approached, I could see that he was deep in thought. He had a different expression on his face. Here was this experienced, confident, well trained, somewhat unfit, overweight, middle-aged man sitting with an expression on his face that I have now come to recognize over my years of medical practice. It is an expression of helpless fear of the unknown.
It seems that it does not matter who you are, how strong you are, what your life circumstances are...no one really wants to be sick. How could this happen to him? After all he had given to medicine, how could nature do this to him? This must be a mechanism that prepares us for the worst by allowing us to imagine how the worst would be. If the problem does in fact turn out to be the worst, then we feel ready for it. If a lesser evil does materialize, then we feel relieved.
He was very troubled and it was obvious that he was suffering anxiety regarding the potential problem he may have to face in his own life. He appeared to be thinking that it was all over for him after all of his years of dedication, toil and trouble. He was sitting at the nurses’ station on the evening before his colonoscopy and he appeared to be pondering why he had been cheated out of life, why him? What had he done to deserve this? He was probably feeling the same way that everyone feels when they are put in a similar situation.
I think that he was so self-engrossed that he did not recognize what he was experiencing. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He had attended the finest British private schools as a youth and he had attended Trinity College in Dublin. He was board certified in Surgery and Radiology. Yes, he was all of those things, but he was also human just like the rest of us. He had to eat, sleep and yes, he could even get a medical illness, just like you and I. I seem to remember an old saying: no matter who you are, our souls all go to the same place.
Actually Dr. Mohit was fortunate. He had a large rectal bleed from a benign adenomatous polyp that was not far up into the sigmoid colon such that when it bled, it was rather profuse.
I was never certain of whatever happened to Dr. Mohit. He was a very special person. But I can't help but wonder if the close call that he suffered may have helped him to appreciate what his patients go though every day.
Life offers us moments in which to learn lessons from the choices that we make. Of course, the choices that we make determine how we live our life. After experiencing this personal health crisis, perhaps in some way he was convinced to take more time, enjoy life and spend time with his family. One never knows when an unexpected event can shift our priorities.
© Copyright, PeopleMenders.com Inc., 2009. All Rights Reserved.
About the Author
Dr. Cone is a Family Physician who has worked in a variety of locations since graduating from a rotating internship in 1979. This included some locum tenens work initially followed by Family who then changed to full time Emergency Physician in 1995. He is currently doing locum tenens work.
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