What are your thoughts on how the care you provided ties in with skills performed in lab sessions?

Lab sessions are useful up to a point. So are X-rays. It all boils down to the knowledge and skill of the doctors. An illustrative case.

The old man had tuberculosis affecting the apex of his right lung. He was on streptomycin the only anti-tuberculosis drug then available. Resistance of the bacteria to the drug in those early days of the drug was not a problem. But the old man was going steadily downhill. His mild diabetes was under proper control. We did not know what we had to do to revive the patient. The chief had not seen the case, The unit assistant wanted the chief’s opinion. The chief examined the patient. He talked to him and stood looking at him thoughtfully. Then again he asked him about his family details. He then gave us his opinion. ‘He is not improving,’ he said, ‘because he has lost his desire to live.’ We were bewildered. We have never been told in books or from our teachers that loss of desire to live can be a contributory cause for a patient not improving.

The patient had lost his wife some months ago, and shortly before admission had lost his only child, a grown-up daughter. He had no one in the world he could call his own. We cheered him up the best we could. The nurse talked to his occasional visitors to bring in more visitors to cheer him up. As an intern, I was in the unit only for a couple of more weeks. When I last saw him he was improved.