Training Future Doctors

A couple of Mondays ago I found myself speeding across east Texas for the third year in a row, on my way to Texas A&M university to meet some first-year med students. Every year, the wonderful Dr. Chris Ruud and his colleagues from Scott & White Hospital invite us to bring a panel of young adult cancer survivors into their classroom.

The alleged reason is to teach these future docs about leukemia and lymphoma---we can only sneak in under the hematology curriculum module. But the subversive Planet Cancer reason is so the students can see what a real cancer survivor looks like, how we really think, and to plant the seeds for the development of empathy. The fact that a young, wanna-be doc can look at a real-live patient, listen to their story and think, "That could be me" is pretty powerful.

It's a brilliant idea, and everyone really enjoys it. I give my spiel on YAs and cancer, then we open the floor to the survivor panel, and the students ask whatever questions pop into their heads. This year was a great class with lots of questions---a bunch about communication, which I thought was interesting: "How did your doctor tell you it was cancer? What was the worst thing someone said to you? How much information did you want from your doctor?"

It's amazing to watch these young students start to comprehend the awesome task in front of them. One day soon they will be giving patients good and bad news, and helping them make life-changing decisions. It was heartening to see how eager they were to do the best job they could. Maybe, if we're lucky, we'll get some good oncologists out of it.

And I got a free burrito.