Heavy Stuff

You know those carnival workers who can guess anybody's weight with just one glance? I've always been amazed by those people- they make it look so easy to tell what is heavy from what is light. Outside the gates of the carnival, we normal folks must work a little harder to judge the heft of an object or the gravity of a situation. Reflecting on our first full day in Mississippi, I'm struck by just how challenging judging a weight can be in both literal and figurative senses.

We should have known that with a name like "sheetrock," the material we were about to haul was darn heavy. But the stack of white rectangles looked like they were made of coffee-cup styrofoam and I was thus convinced that carrying the 80-odd sheets across the swampy yard and into the house would make light work. The killer burn in my forearms after moving just three sheets of the stuff proved that I had sorely underestimated this weight. We spent the afternoon lauging about how the wind turned the big, heavy boards into parachutes, pushing us into mud puddles with every pass. Though some of the more dexterous and strong-armed among us kept their feet dry, I ended the afternoon with soggy shoes. And more importantly an appreciation for the weight that puts the "rock" in sheetrock. Tomorrow we start hanging it on the walls!

From the beginning of our time at Pritzker, we doctors-in-training have been learning skills to help us handle "heavy" situations. Our practices will often put us in situations defined by suffering, death, and dying. Our patients will often carry heavy burdens with them into our exam rooms. Today, I had the incredible privilege of shadowing Sister Doctor Anne Brooks at the Tutwiler Clinic. I learned more about physical diagnosis, patient care, and the life of a physician in a rural community than should have been possible to learn in four short hours. The most important lesson Dr. Brooks taught me regarded lightening heavy situations. I watched again and again as Dr. Brooks brought smiles to the faces of her patients. These were patients facing not only difficult diagnoses but also a myriad of factors that affect their ability to manage their conditions. Dr. Brooks described how when she meets with a patient, it's her goal to get them out of "sick mode" so they can stop fixating on some of the heavy stuff and begin to believe in their ability to get better. It's hard to put the magnitude of her skill and her caring into words. I can so easily imagine that the burden of 30 years of practice in the face of such obstacles would amount to a burden too heavy to carry. But while Dr. Brooks fully understand the gravity of the situations of the patients she treats, she practices as if there is no burden at all, as if that sheet of drywall is just as light as it looks.