Manuel Vidal, Jr.

2014-87023
IDC 202: Interview with a cancer patient
It was an interesting afternoon I was in for my very first medical interview
session with a patient. I havent had any experience doing it too formally.
Whenever I join various medical missions, I always observed that doctors
who are there for consultations typically keep the interview very short. There
was no detailed outline on how the interview goes, just as long as it sticks to
something relevant about the patients chief complaint. I always have
thought thats how it goes.
And yet, I was in for a ride. The interviewee was a 53-year old cervical cancer
patient, currently undergoing chemotherapy and radiotherapy. We had this
set of questions for her actually, it was more of a list of things-to-know, and
how we go about questioning depends on our strategy. In this case, it wasnt
quite hard to elicit information from her. She willingly talked about her
condition, how it started, how it progressed, and what her current treatment
options are.
Perhaps what was hard about the interview is how to follow up questions
which we have posed a while ago. It was quite easy when we were going
through the history of present illness, since she is very much willing to tell us
the events leading to her present condition. On the other hand, we were
having trouble on how would we take into account her family history on
seeing whether her parents conditions display risk factors for her conditions.
We had no initial idea on what were the risk factors for cervical cancer. In her
ensuing inquiries regarding her condition, unfortunately we were not fully
knowledgeable about it.
After the interview, I realized that not all people really know what cancer is,
and what are the associated risk factors. As a medical student, I think I have
the capacity to at least give them a textbook overview of what their
condition is. In reality, there are a lot of diseases in which the public dont
really have a grasp of what are they really, and it is my job to inform them of
those as well. Perhaps by participating in public health lectures and medical
missions, I can be of help in disseminating health information.
Cancer patients are people who trigger a compassion switch in me,
especially since my half-sister passed away due to breast cancer. The
disease is damaging not only physically but also emotionally and socially
you see families who have a hard time keeping the members together due to
emotional distress, children who cannot be brought to smiles anymore,
women who every now and then cry out loud in their beds due to suffering.
Seeing our patient reminded me of my biggest decision in life entering
medical school through a molecular medicine program that would hopefully

provide a better alternative to radiotherapy, if not a universal cure, for

cancer.