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Ritual of the bedside exam
Dr. Abraham Verghese explains the ritual of the bedside exam. Created by Sal Khan.
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- Why do surgeons tend to be more abrupt, less empathic than internal medicine doctors? That's my experience. Last time I was hospitalized for surgery, my surgeon didn't even come up to the bedside to see me. He just stood in the doorway and asked how I was doing. He didn't seem to listen to me at all.(36 votes)
- I am a neurosurgery resident and it is important to realize that we do not have a cap of patients; whereas most internal medicine docters are capped a certain number of patients. We are also constantly being pulled in different directions - to the OR, trauma bay for emergent procedures, ED for emergent consults - therefore it is necessary to be as efficient and quick as possible because someone else may be dying three rooms over who needs your attention. The best surgeons are the ones who can be efficient, quick, and who can still make their patients feel as though they are being heard and not being treated like a "specimen".(47 votes)
- This is reminiscent of the book "Every Patient Tells a Story" by Lisa Sanders. Her book is about the importance of the physical exam and its loss in modern medicine.(10 votes)
- Brilliant insight from Dr. Verghese! Apart from being deep, it is so true that this ritual is most times absent altogether. I can't tell you how many times I've been hurried out of an examination room without so much as being laid hands upon. Always my thought is how shortchanged I've been on each visit. In fact, I find that NDs (naturopathic doctors) do such a better job than the MDs I've visited. They do not shirk on the ritual of the bedside exam. I know that allopathic doctors are crunched by the insurance companies because they are only paid for so much time per patient but I think the patient's impression of how comprehensive the exam is of equal importance. Please upload more medical videos. And it would be nice to have an MCAT section as well.(7 votes)
- I am a nurse, I'm in a Nurse Practitioner program and we do physical exams... why does Dr. Verghese only mentions "The Physician" exclusively? This excludes other healthcare providers that are in the same position as "the physician".(7 votes)
- Good point - this was written for medical students, but nurses are an extremely valuable part of the medical team!(5 votes)
- why does Mr Verghese say, at4:29to4:31in the video that as soon as the doc lays hands on the patient, the symptoms give way, like in a stomach ache??(forgive me if there's some minor change, i may have heard wrong)(4 votes)
- He says it 'gives weight' not 'gives way'. Essentially explaining that a patient will feel more understood and validated in their concerns if the doctor actually examines them physically rather than just ordering tests.(5 votes)
- Why is lumbar Puncture performed between L3 and L5?(3 votes)
- This is because the spinal cord ends at approximately the L1 or L2 vertebral level, so the needle will not pierce and damage the cord at the L3 to L5 levels.(4 votes)
- Do people really wear gowns at the doctors these days? Because he talks about how the doctor MIGHT wear a coat but talks about the gown as if that's an everyday thing ever doctor does. I have only really seen it on TV, in instructional videos and in ER/hospital situations. Not at the doctors office. I have never ever worn a gown when I went to any doctor from pediatrician to gynecologist. As a kid I was in my underwear, as a teen and adult clothing would be removed or lifted as needed. It feels a lot better to have areas that aren't being examined right now completely covered. Also, it's easier to talk to the doctor after if you only have to put your pants/underpants or shirt back on after an exam rather than having to sit there and talk to him/her in a flimsy gown or having to completely change.(2 votes)
- I am curious as to what Dr. Verghese feels is the role for point of care ultrasound as a part of the physical exam. In my experience as an Emergency Physician I have found ultrasound used at the bedside to be the one modern technological development in medicine that brings us closer to the patient's bedside. It has been called amongst my colleagues the "stethoscope of the 21st century," and it allows us to show and teach and look within the body in an incredibly new and novel and transformative way, that is both powerful and awe-inspiring, for health care providers and patients alike. It is inexpensive and without radiation, and I would be interested to know how Dr. Verghese or others feel about its use as a part of the ritual of physical examination.(3 votes)
- Why is the doctor so quiet?(0 votes)
- its probably the way the mic is positioned or the doctor is further away from the mic(4 votes)
Video transcript
SALMAN KHAN: This is Sal again. I'm here at Stanford Medical
School with Doctor Abraham Verghese and what are
we going to talk about? ABRAHAM VERGHESE:
We're going to talk about the ritual of the
physical exam, the bedside exam. SALMAN KHAN: The physical
exam, the ritual-- why do you call it a ritual? That's interesting that
you call it a ritual. ABRAHAM VERGHESE: Yeah,
I think the lesson I've learned from hanging around
with my anthropology colleagues here at Stanford is that rituals
are all about transformation. A ritual signals the
crossing of a threshold. You baptize to signal the
crossing of a threshold, we marry to signal our departure
from a life of solitude, loneliness, and misery
to one of eternal bliss. SALMAN KHAN: Yes. ABRAHAM VERGHESE:
So our lives are full of-- You shouldn't
be laughing Sal. SALMAN KHAN: No. It resonates so
strongly with me. ABRAHAM VERGHESE: So
crossing a threshold is why we have a ritual. And I would say that the
act of one individual coming to another, and telling
them things they wouldn't tell their rabbi or their preacher,
and then incredibly disrobing and allowing touch, I
would say that that signals a ritual of
incredible importance. And the fact that
we, in the postmodern sort of medical world,
have stopped seeing it that way and just see it as
another data gathering tool may work for us, but I don't think
it works for the patient. And I think that a major
disconnect between us and our patients is our
failure to see what they see, which is a profound ritual in
which they're highly invested. And we then come and just
stick our stethoscope on top of the shirt, or don't
examine them thoroughly, we are sort of short
changing ourselves of an important ritual. SALMAN KHAN: Yeah, and
I'll feel short changed. I'm kidding. Sorry. ABRAHAM VERGHESE: But
I'd love to list for you, if I may, those aspects of
what makes this a ritual. So if you look at
it, first of all there's always a
specialized space. You don't examine a patient
out in the corridor. It's always a special room, a
ceremonial room if you will. Mysterious looking objects on
the walls, a very specialized bed that you sit on. These are all signals
that this is a virtual. Then when the physician
walks in the physician often is wearing
a ceremonial garb, which happens to
be a white coat. SALMAN KHAN: Fascinating. This is interesting just from an
anthropological point of view. ABRAHAM VERGHESE: The physician
is wearing ceremonial garment. The patient is also
instructed to disrobe and gets a patient garment. SALMAN KHAN: Which
seems specially designed to put patients in a
position of weakness. ABRAHAM VERGHESE: I know. It's quite unfortunate. We should be rethinking
the [INAUDIBLE] garments [? major. ?] And then the physician then
begins a systematic exam, which at some level is
mysterious to the patient. It's not always
clear to the patient why the physician is
thumping on their chest or why the physician is
saying take a deep breath, or cross your arms, or stand
on tiptoe, or take your hand and touch your nose rapidly. So there's mysterious and
ritualistic aspects to it. And very often the
physician is using terms that are somewhat
Latinate and arcane, and utterly mysterious to the patient such
as fremitus, and percussion. SALMAN KHAN: What
does fremitus mean? ABRAHAM VERGHESE: Fremitus means
you ask the patient to say 99, and you listen, you put
your hand on their chest. You pick up the vibration,
and if they have consolidation or collapse the
fremitus is not what it should be compared
to the other side. SALMAN KHAN: The fremitus,
so was it the sound or the-- ABRAHAM VERGHESE: It's
more like the vibration. Sound being transmitted
through and being picked up by your hand. SALMAN KHAN: Interesting. ABRAHAM VERGHESE:
So the thing that's most interesting to
me about the ritual is that the person
coming in might be a policeman, a
teacher, an entrepreneur, but in the process of
putting on that gown, and sitting on that
ceremonial chair, they have sort of been
stripped of all that identity, and they are taking on the
identity of being the patient. But conversely, I think there's
something very important that happens, which is that just
before this the patient has been vocalizing all their
symptoms and their complaints, and at that point the physician
could order ten tests, and go and look at
images, but there's something about the
physician then laying hands on the patient,
that sort of gives weight to what the patient
just talked about. You talk about
your belly hurting, and then this individual
carefully examines your belly. It's sort of
validating your soma. Your body is being
validated in this ritual. And then when you
finally have the tests all sent off they become sort
of-- what follows intuitively on the ritual of first having
it validated on your body. One of the things that
I bemoan sometimes is that at times the
patient in the bed, I feel, in hospitals
around America, has almost become an icon
for the real patient who's in the computer. SALMAN KHAN: Right. It's just something
to interface with to get to that data
structure in the computer. It's interesting. ABRAHAM VERGHESE:
I've coined a term for that entity in the computer. It's the iPatient. When the iPatient is getting
fabulous care the real patient I think has a need to feel
their complaints validated. To feel it validated
on their soma, and to engage in a ritual for
which there's a transformation. And you might well ask me,
what is the transformation that takes place in this ritual? And, I think the
transformation is the sense of the patient
has delivered the story, the physician in the
process of the ritual has validated that
they've heard the story and tried to locate
it on the soma, and the transformation
is really the ceiling of the patient
physician relationship. And so I think what
has happened Sal, unfortunately, is
that because we have so much technology we've
become very sloppy in the way we examine patients. I think that we should be a
hundredfold better at examining people given that we
have real-time feedback with echocardiograms,
angiograms, and all that. Instead of which, I
think people have never been less certain of
their bed side skills. SALMAN KHAN: What
about this phenomenon, just talking to physicians
I know in my own family, that there's so
much time pressure. They have to see so many
patients, one every 15 minutes, and all of this, and they
wish they could do this, but they'll say that I have
so many other things to worry about, and the
paperwork, and all that. Is it realistic? ABRAHAM VERGHESE: No, I think
that's a very real concern. But I think if you
can do this well. And our goal at Stanford
is to teach our students to do it very well. You actually save time. Because if you do a quick
exam and you find that they're tender in a certain spot you
can order the test that sources just that out,
rather than, which I think is much more common,
which is I don't really know what's going on,
I'll tick off every box, and maybe something will
fall out of the sky. So I think a directed exam,
not only fulfills the ritual, but if you're any good
at it, it actually allows you to ask better
questions of a test you order and minimize the patient's
exposure to radiation. And I think the trouble
is we get all these tests, and we get back
results we don't know what to do with, we stumble onto
what we call incidentalomas. Have you heard that term? SALMAN KHAN: Incidentaloma. Well, I have heard that VIP's
often get worse medical care because they do
everything for them. ABRAHAM VERGHESE:
Yeah, exactly and they wind up with finding things
they don't know what to do. SALMAN KHAN: Exactly yeah
over diagnosing things. ABRAHAM VERGHESE: But to
come back to a ritual, I think we at Stanford
are very proud to feel that, as much as we
represent this great bastion of technology and
advancement, we also celebrate the fundamental ritual aspects
of the patient physician relationship, which
is best symbolized in the physical exam. SALMAN KHAN: I think this
is why a lot of physicians originally want to
enter the field. It sometimes gets lost, but this
is why they wanted to do it. ABRAHAM VERGHESE:
And you're right. I think they often
get disappointed when they learn to do this
and arrive on the wards and find that no one's
carrying a stethoscope, and no one's carrying-- I mean
they carry the stethoscope. I think it's like
a mating symbol. SALMAN KHAN: No you gotta
carry one to look legitimate. ABRAHAM VERGHESE: But they
don't carry the knee hammer, and they don't carry
all the other tools. SALMAN KHAN: I once visited
my wife at the doctor and I wore her coat,
and I felt very good. ABRAHAM VERGHESE: Did you
drape your stethoscope around the neck too? SALMAN KHAN: Oh I did. Yeah, I looked
very authoritative. ABRAHAM VERGHESE: That's a
great signal that you arrived. So I think that we
have so much to learn from our anthropology colleagues
about the importance of ritual. I think sometimes we
operate as though medicine is all about reason, but it's
really reason, ritual, emotion. They all tie in together. This is art and science. SALMAN KHAN: No. This is fascinating. I'm going to reflect
on some of the rituals I do now to see if they are. Very cool. Well, thank you for this. ABRAHAM VERGHESE:
Thank you so much.