Long Term Impacts of Pimping

Woe be the person who can’t answer. Or, worse yet, dissolves into tears. It took the young Doc Gurley longer than it should have to realize that your first answer should be the most obvious answer. I would get asked something like “Can you tell us what this patient has?” and the only possible answer (to me), based on the patient’s two-week hospitalization that had baffled eight sub-specialty services and their nineteen invasive procedures, was “uh, no.” Unfortunately, the correct first answer was “This patient has a fever. It won’t go away. No one knows why.” The next correct answer was “A fever of unknown origin can be divided into two categories – true and false.” Sigh.

One of my goals post-training has been to ask more often than I tell. It’s a shockingly positive thing to do – when done gently and considerately – and a wonderful form of post-pimping-rehab for those of us in recovery from the trauma of medical residency. When you ask someone what they think is going on, the answer can be really surprising. Everything from “I just want to know I’m not pregnant,” to “I’m pretty sure I’m dying” (when he is…).

Asking: Or Is It Pimping? [Doc Gurley]

Correlate: Pimping: How to Cope

Correlate: Pimping: What to Expect

Correlate: Pimping in Action

Correlate: Survive OR Pimping